Doctor Mirabilis
by Louiseifer
Summary: When light manipulating aliens dupe the human race into believing they constitute the one true God, the Doctor finds himself torn between revealing the absolute truth, and saving the life of the man he has grown to love. TenxJack.
1. Chapter 1

**Doctor Mirablis**

_Summary_: When light-manipulating aliens dupe the human race into believing they constitute the one true God, the Doctor decides it's his task to set humanity straight. Meanwhile Jack is in real danger when the United Divine Order accuse him of breaking every law and commandment in the Bible. The Doctor finds himself torn between revealing the absolute truth, and saving the life of the man he has grown to love.

_Rating_: this chapter - G. Eventual R. Overall R.

_Warnings_: Slash (Ten/Jack) and blasphamy. Lots of blasphamy. A good dollop in every chapter. The slash is mild at first, but will become more intense. I don't want to see ANY reviews telling me I'm going to hell for writing this. I'm an atheist with a fascination for Christian mythology, which gives me a very interesting angle on the whole thing.

_Disclaimer_: I claim no ownership of anything pertaining to Doctor Who. The mighty and holy British Broadcasting Corporation owns the lot.

_Prologue_

The TARDIS materialised with a little reluctance this time. The Doctor, ever in tune with his machine, winced in physical pain as her engine stuttered and almost died. Relief shone in his eyes as she got a grip on herself, engines purring and finally settling into silence.

Jack looked up from his side of the control panel and raised a questioning eyebrow at the Doctor. "Are we there?"

"Dunno." The Doctor nodded at Martha, already poised by the door. "Take a look and see. If we're lucky, that should be twenty-first century Earth, London, Oxford Street just before midnight on Friday 3rd August 2007. If we're unlucky… Who knows? Centre of the sun? A planet full of dinosaurs with a taste for human flesh? Bromley? I shudder to think of the possibilities."

Jack could tell the TARDIS still wasn't quite right, despite the flippant tone in the Doctor's voice. He was no expert at maintaining the thing despite his near obsessive fixation with learning to understand it, but the TARDIS was telepathic, and since she and the Doctor welcomed him back Jack had come to realise she was opening up to him more and more. He could feel her unease, her sense of bewilderment, and wondered what the hell could be wrong.

Then there was the Doctor. If Jack was learning to read the TARDIS, he was something of an expert with her Time Lord partner. He was standing there, grinning away, but his left hand lightly stroked the TARDIS console as if soothing or placating her. And there was that look in his eye. The look that was Jack's early warning, the look that said danger was lying in wait. Either something was very wrong with the TARDIS herself, or she had detected something and communicated it to the Doctor. Either way it was bad news.

Martha pushed open the doors and stepped outside. That was one thing Jack had noticed about the TARDIS's regular occupants; they never looked before they leaped. Never checked to see if the coast was clear. If it was, then all was well, and if it wasn't – well, that was part of the fun.

"Earth?" asked Jack.

"Um," said Martha. "I think so."

The Doctor checked his instruments and nodded. "Should be. London, England, Earth."

"Not Oxford Street, though," Martha called back. "And I'm not so sure this is the twenty-first century."

Jack and the Doctor joined her on the pavement outside the TARDIS. The Doctor smacked a hand against his forehead. "Twenty-second century," he observed as something vaguely resembling a car trundled past and disappeared into the night. Then his mouth opened, but no sound came out. He shut it again.

"Jack," said the Doctor very slowly. "You saw that solar-powered car go past."

"Sure." Jack caught the look on Martha's face and grinned. "Stores energy," he explained. "It'd be a little bit shit if solar powered stuff just broke down at night or malfunctioned when it's overcast."

"Right," said the Doctor. "Solar powered cars are very big in the twenty-second century. Very popular. Utterly green, utterly safe. Unless you get hit by one, I suppose. Went out of favour by the twenty-third century when they finally found a way to make a non-rubbish electric car. None of that leaving it in the sun to charge malarkey, no solar panels, just plug it in when you're not using it and takes two seconds to charge up at a power station on long journeys. Solar powered lasted, oh… maybe sixty years, tops." He scratched at his ear then pointed down the road. "So what puzzles me is, why is there a church to the Holy Sect of Dru in twenty-second century Britain? And more to the point, why are those people setting fire to it?"

Jack and Martha had little choice but to follow the Doctor down the road towards the small, squat building on the corner. There was quite a crowd growing outside it, most of the people equipped with burning torches or flamethrowers, some of them yelling but most of them silent, intense. A tree in the small front garden was already ablaze, but the presence of a small man in a robe, with tears streaming down his face was currently preventing the mob from setting the building itself on fire. Jack looked at the symbol in place over the door and knew there could be no mistaking it: the three triangles of Dru. But he and the Doctor both knew Dru to be an alien god, a belief imported to Earth in the twenty-fifth century by travellers from a distant solar system. He proved very popular amongst new agers due to his followers' fanatical devotion to peace and tranquillity, their advice to seek harmony above all else, and their belief that chocolate was the holiest of substances and should be eaten several times per day to aid peace of mind. Dru, like solar powered vehicles, was popular in his time but somewhat gimmicky and unconvincing. He had his place and time, but it was limited. On Earth, it was limited to the twenty-fifth and –sixth centuries A.D.

"Oi!" the Doctor yelled as they approached. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" He grabbed the flamethrower from the grip of the nearest mob member and launched it with surprising strength across the road, where it exploded harmlessly on the concrete and smouldered for a few minutes.

"Help me!" pleaded the Druian priest.

"Too right," said the Doctor.

He ploughed his way through the crowd, Jack following with the vague intention of dealing with anyone who tried to stop him. No one moved. Everyone stared at the furious newcomer.

"Setting _fire_ to a temple of Dru!" the Doctor yelled incredulously at the mob. "A deity who preaches nothing but peace? Who are you? What makes you think you have the _right_ to do this?"

No one answered. The mob waited in silence, waited for the priest to stand down or for the Doctor to do something else interesting. As mobs went, they weren't very angry, and their cause was anyone's guess.

To Jack's surprise it was the priest who answered the question.

"Um. Actually, they _do_ have the right. I just wish they didn't."

The Doctor stared at him. "What did you say?"

"They have the right to tear down temples of sin. As it were. Places of unholy worship. It's the law. It's just not implemented very often…" He blinked up at the Doctor with wide, frightened, yet curious eyes. "How come you do not know this?"

"The Law? The _law?_ What sort of bloody stupid law is this then?"

"The first commandment of the United Divine Order." The speaker appeared to be the leader of the mob, a broad man with intense brown eyes. "'Thou shalt not worship false gods, nor tolerate such worship, nor allow it to go unpunished'."

"Oh yes?" The Doctor nodded at the priest beside him. "Sparky here says this law isn't implemented much. That's a bit slack, isn't it?"

"We show mercy, even when The Light does not. It is our failing to feel compassion for our fellow men. It is our failing to allow their delusions of truth and spare their lives. We will suffer for our mercy."

Jack shook his head as if expecting the cotton wool that was obviously muffling his hearing to dislodge itself from his ears. "You'll _what_?"

"Right," said the Doctor. "You'll suffer for your mercy, is it? United Divine Order, eh? You worship The Light?"

"This is correct. You feign ignorance. Why?" There was no accusation in the leader's tone, just curiosity, as if ignorance of his cause was simply unheard of before.

"Just checking. Sorry to bother you." The Doctor turned on his heel and ducked into the little building. He emerged a moment or two later with a young woman and an older lady, both dressed similarly to the priest, and both absolutely terrified.

"I'll just take these three for… questioning. Have fun."

Jack and the Doctor herded the three Druians out into the street as the mob descended on the little temple. Some of them had produced sledgehammers and pickaxes. Some simply stood back and watched.

The two women were clutching large bags which, Jack suspected, contained anything of value they possessed. The three of them clung together in the middle of the road, none of them daring to look back as the onslaught on their temple began.

"You lived there?" said Jack. "Doctor, that was their home! We can't let it be destroyed."

"Just a building," said the Doctor. "Plenty of those around, but have you ever tried to stop a mob destroying one? Not worth it." He looked at the Priest. "You got anywhere to stay?"

"My nephew's home, I suppose."

"Excellent. I'm the Doctor, by the way, and these are Jack and… Well, Martha's around somewhere. Probably getting herself into trouble as usual. We're not from round here. We're not even sure where here is. But we're here to help."

He took the address of the priest's nephew and promised to check up on them later. Then he stalked off down the road in the opposite direction from the TARDIS. Jack had to jog to keep up.

"Where is this?" he asked.

"Earth."

"But _where_? And when?"

"No idea."

"Where are we going?"

"To find out, of course."

"Of course."

The Doctor slowed down to allow Jack to keep pace with him. "You don't have to come, you know. Could be dangerous. You could always stay behind in the TARDIS."

Jack stared at him. Then they both burst out laughing.

"Come on then," said the Doctor. "First we figure out when and where we are. Then we find out what's gone wrong. Then we fix it. Might be an idea to find Martha too, but I suspect she can take care of anything this world has to throw at her." He gave jack a crafty sideways grin. "You and me. Just the way I like it."


	2. Chapter 2

"Light," said the Doctor. He took his hands out of his coat pockets and snapped his fingers as Jack continued to struggle to keep pace with him. "Light, light, light. You humans are obsessed, you really are. And who can blame you? You with your rubbishy hearing, your non-existent sense of smell. You use your eyes for everything. You take pity on the blind. You can't comprehend a world without shape and colour – I mean just _look_ how easily kids get bored with a television show just because it happens to be in black and white. Not only that, but your entire planet and every life form on it is entirely dependant on the sun and its light to keep you alive. Light is everything. It tells you what you are, where you are, who else is nearby. It tells you when to eat, sleep, plant the harvest. Your brains are wired up to respond to light. It doesn't just create life – it _is_ life."

Jack could only nod his understanding as he followed the Doctor down the street. It looked like a perfectly normal residential street, lined on either side with terraced houses and interspersed with a garage or a shop or a side street. This might easily be London, or any other British town. There was no way to tell.

"The Ancient Greeks had some funny ideas about light, though," the Doctor rambled on. "Fantastic race, the Greeks. Love them to bits. Rome needs a good kick in the teeth for what it did to Greece…" he stared into space for a moment. "I went back five times to get Archimedes out. Worth every risk, but it just wasn't to be. Where was I?"

"Light," said Jack. "And Greeks."

"Right. Yes. The Greeks thought light came from _inside_ the eyes. Took a bloody smart Arab to find the flaw in that, but isn't it a nice idea? Light, illumination, enlightenment coming straight from the human head, without any external fiddling. Funny really. The Greeks had the only genuine gods in human history, and they never really took them seriously. They never once waged war in the name of their gods. For the sake of conquest, for exploration, for women, yes, but never for their gods."

They stopped outside a small corner shop, dark and shuttered up for the night. Jack caught his breath and the Doctor studied him for a moment, one hand apparently stuck in his hair. "Would you say you worship the light, Jack?"

He shook his head. "I don't worship a damned thing."

"Good man."

The Doctor smiled at him, a brief dazzling smile that made Jack wish this new cause had never come along, that they had ended up back in Martha's London so she could visit her family, leaving Jack and the Doctor to their own devices. Alone. Still, seeing the Doctor so hyped up about this mysterious United Divine Order was oddly stimulating. Jack never felt so alive than when he was in the Doctor's presence, and there was a mystery to solve or an enemy to fight.

"Keep a lookout for me," said the Doctor. He had produced his sonic screwdriver and was setting to work on the shop's shutters.

"We're breaking into a newsagent's?" Jack asked, curious but not really surprised.

"Well. Yes. But it's not like we're going to steal anything."

"Then what's the point?"

"We want to know when we are. Middle of the night, what we need's a newspaper. Something tells me we aren't going to find many twenty-four hour Tescos round here."

The shutter slid up, clanging violently in the silent night. The door opened next, and Jack watched the Doctor's back disappear into the blackness of the shop. He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and huffed dragon-breath into the chilly air. Apparently the Doctor had got the month wrong as well as the century. If Jack was any judge it was late autumn, practically winter.

There was a thud and a muffled exclamation, then a couple of cans rolled out of the door and into the road. Jack stooped to gather them up, turned to take them back into the shop, and crashed into the Doctor running at full pelt out of the door.

"Move!"

Jack's legs acted on autopilot, propelling him along the street after the Doctor. He took a look over his shoulder but he couldn't see anything except darkness.

Which was odd, considering the street was lined with bright yellow lights, the sky was clear, and the moon approaching full.

"Don't look!" yelled the Doctor from somewhere up ahead. In a panic, Jack realised he could no longer see him. He flailed in front of him in the now pitch black street, felt the relief surge through him as his fingers found the familiar fabric of the Doctor's coat. Jack's mind reeled, as if his brain was lurching about inside his head, and he realised, distantly, that he was falling.

When he opened his eyes the Doctor was crouched beside him in the middle of the road. The glare of the streetlamps almost blinded him. He blinked several times until his eyes adjusted to the brightness.

"Almost lost you there," said the Doctor.

Jack propped himself up on his elbows. His face and neck were covered in sweat, not from the run – the shop was only a dozen yards away – but brought on by something primal, something Jack wasn't entirely used to – fear. He hadn't consciously felt afraid. There was no reasonable structure to the emotion, and he didn't even know what he was afraid of. Something in his head, something unused by all but his earliest ancestors, was tripped by the shadow that chased the Doctor out of the shop. It was indefinable, illogical and the memory of it chilled Jack to the bone.

"If you don't run, you'll die," he murmured.

The Doctor frowned. "What?"

"That's how it felt. You didn't have to tell me to run from that thing… whatever it was. It was like… like it was a predator and I was the prey, like I just knew I had to get away. My whole body reacted like, if I didn't move the worst things imaginable were going to happen."

"That's exactly what happened. Predator, prey. Perfect analogy."

"But what _was_ it?"

A shrug. "Nothing. Just darkness."

Jack shivered. The night was cold, but he was colder, his body numb to the rough tarmac beneath him. Never in his life had he felt so hysterically terrified, and he was damn sure he'd never fainted before.

"…I didn't get away, did I?" he asked.

"I stopped it, but it sounds like it got into your head, managed to muck you about. Whatever it is, it likes humans. It chased me, but when it saw you… well, it really took a fancy to you. Probably because you're a heck of a lot less smart than me."

Jack ignored that bit. He ran his hand through his hair, grimaced at how thoroughly it was soaked with his own sweat. His heart was still pounding, his breathing rapid, and when the Doctor touched the back of his hand to Jack's cheek he flinched away in terror. A hurt look flashed across the Doctor's face, followed swiftly by understanding.

"Take deep breaths," he advised. "Try to calm down. We've got a heck of a lot of work to do."

"Right," said Jack. Then his hand shot out and grabbed the Doctor's tie, and he pulled him into a kiss. It was no more or less passionate than any they had risked before, but somehow, as the Doctor pulled Jack up towards him, it seemed right in a way it hadn't before, and Jack realised this was the first time the Doctor had actually responded to him rather than simply tolerating Jack's lips on his own.

A horn blared as a car shot past them, and the Doctor broke the kiss. Jack cursed the driver and willed him to fall asleep at the wheel while taking a blind corner at ninety miles-per-hour, half way up a mountain somewhere.

"Better?" the Doctor asked.

"A little. I'll feel much better when you finally let me get into your-"

"Good."

The Doctor was on his feet again and stalking back down the road towards the shop. Jack spotted the remains of a newspaper scattered across the street, pages blown asunder and any sense of order lost. The Doctor picked up a random page and wandered back to Jack, who decided it was probably time to get to his feet.

"Nice to see the old Sun's still going strong," said the Doctor, handing Jack page three. "Turns out it's the thirty-second of October, 2434. Thursday."

"She's definitely feeling the cold," Jack observed.

The Doctor carried on down the street, away from the TARDIS, but flung back over his shoulder, "I'm going to be pretty busy in the foreseeable future, so you might want to keep hold of that."

Jack swore under his breath, and followed.

Martha stared at the sight in front of her, eyes wide with disbelief. She should have known wandering off would be a bad idea, and following utter strangers who happened to look a bit shifty was not up there on the list of great strategic manoeuvres either. She had tried and failed to give the Doctor and Jack some space to sort out whatever was going on between them, always managing to stumble into the room at inopportune moments, or making the wrong sort of comments, and now when they really should be sticking together in a strange place and time, she had intelligently gotten lost.

The man in the car had watched the Doctor's antics at the temple from the opposite side of the road, but driven off once the family emerged from the building. Martha couldn't resist the urge to find out who and what they were, so followed the car into the next street. It stopped at traffic lights at the end of the road, allowing Martha to catch up with it before it turned another corner and sped off into the distance. She was about to give up and turn back when she saw the vehicle stop at a barrier to a car park at the far end of the street. She ran along the road in pursuit, and was startled to find that the car had pulled into a hospital.

Not that it was in any way obvious at first. The building was of the simplest design, nothing more than a box made of red bricks with one door and some high windows. Martha pushed open the door and found herself in what could be described as a ward, an operating room, an office for a dozen nurses and maybe three doctors, a lunch hall, a bathroom, or – amazingly – a stable.

There were roughly fifty patients occupying three rows of beds, and Martha could spot fewer than fifteen staff, two of whom looked like cleaners, and one was tending the horse. The sounds of coughing and vomiting filled the room, along with ringing phones and a few shouts. Occasionally the horse whinnied.

A doctor in a long white coat somehow found a moment to bustle over to her. She was young but her pale faced was lined with stress and exhaustion. She had white-blonde hair which, Martha noted distantly, should have been beautiful but was currently lank, greasy, and tied back in a scruffy ponytail.

"No more beds," the Doctor sighed. "I'm sorry, you'll have to try somewhere else."

Martha shook her head. She decided to come clean. "Actually I was just curious. I followed some men here… from the church round the corner."

"Oh." The doctor's expression went from harassed to furious. "That's it is it? Game up, I suppose." She turned and yelled over her shoulder. "Martin! We've been rumbled."

Another doctor rushed over and glared at Martha. He was middle-aged, hair greying, thick stubble across his jaw. She recognised him as the man from the car. The look he gave her could have boiled paint.

"Little bitch," he snarled. "Got your I.D. I suppose? I'm not packing any of this up unless you do it all by the book. If I can have you on a technicality, I will."

Martha couldn't think of anything to say to this, so instead she gestured towards the hay-strewn corner of the room. "Why is there a horse?"

"That's Bessie," said the woman doctor sadly. "I suppose she'll be homeless too."

"Homeless? Why?"

"Are you thick?" snapped the man. "Who's going to take in a used hospital horse? Who's going to take in a couple of dead-beat doctors with fucking 'H's tattooed on their wrists? And who's going to look after this lot?" He swept his arm in an arc, taking in the three rows of beds. "No one! Most of them can't move. You take us away, and you condemn them all to death."

"What? I'm not taking you anywhere! I'm not from round here. I just followed the car. I was being nosey, I'm really, really sorry."

The man looked as if someone had pulled the floor out from under him and he was waiting for gravity to catch up. "You mean you're not the police?"

"No!"

"You're not with the Unity?"

"The what?"

The two doctors exchanged a look.

"She's bluffing," said the man.

Martha's gaze fell on the nearest patient. He was drifting in and out of consciousness, his breathing ragged and his face covered in sores. She made towards him, perplexed by the symptoms, and the woman trotted after her.

"I wouldn't touch him," she suggested. "Could be contagious."

"Could be? You mean you don't know?"

"You want to tell us what it is? Because we don't have a clue."

A swell of professional pride threatened to displace her priorities as she stood over the patient and looked at his chart. If you could call it a chart. It was more like a few scraps of misshaped paper stuck to a clipboard and scrawled on by someone with a terrible grasp of shorthand.

"Could be any number of things," she began, but the woman shook her head.

"If it was something normal – a fever or an infection – he'd be in a proper hospital. A Unity hospital. With actual equipment and staff who get paid."

Martha stared around her once more. The room was freezing, it stank, and she was fairly sure the patent in the next bed along was dead. It reminded her of old war hospitals in Florence Nightingale's time, except the Doctor had said this was the twenty-second century at the very least.

"What's going on here?" she asked.

The doctors exchanged another look.

"You really don't know?" said the woman.

"I really don't know," said Martha. "Honestly. I'm a traveller. I don't really know where I am."

The man grinned manically. "We call this Purgatory. Some cases the Unity hospitals just won't take. They chuck 'em out into the street, we round 'em up."

"With Bessie," said the woman.

"Some people get better. Some people don't. It's more or less pot-luck, and all we can do is make them comfortable and pump them full of whatever drugs we can steal or get from dealers."

"And hope we haven't been fobbed off with laxatives again."

Martha stared at them in horror. If this was Earth, she decided, she was moving out.

The Doctor was excited. He stared up at the impossibly high spire and jumped up and down on the spot, grinning like a lunatic. They kept walking somewhat randomly until this impressive structure loomed into view, coming at them out of the night like another mind-destroying monster, and the Doctor had instantly fallen in love.

"It's just a church," said Jack, gazing dispassionately up at the black stone walls. "And it's closed. We can't even get in."

"Oh, we can," said the Doctor. "Can, but won't. Not yet. Breaking into churches doesn't feature in my plan of action until a little bit later. But _look_ at this thing! How high is that? A hundred feet? Two hundred?" He ran up to the wall and pressed himself against it, hands splayed out as if he'd just been thrown at it with force. "Beautiful craftsmanship, but I've never seen anything like it. And this black stone! There's nothing like this on Earth short of black marble, and it's not that."

"So we've got an alien church," said Jack. He felt inexplicably jealous of a building that could provoke such a reaction from the Doctor.

"Yeah. Weird."

The Doctor trotted back to Jack, still staring up at the spire towering above them. Jack had to admit it was surreal, a structure like this in the middle of such an urban area. He couldn't place this thing in any sort of context short of the really crap gothic movies that the twenty-first century seemed good at spawning, except this was real. Someone had put thought and effort into designing this. Someone had thought this was how a church should look.

That was when he noticed the stained glass windows. For a moment he thought he'd spotted them before the Doctor, but he was mistaken. They simultaneously tilted their heads to the left in an attempt to gain some perspective on the nearest colourful scene.

"Is that a man walking _horizontally_ into the sky?" said the Doctor.

"From his perspective," said Jack.

"Right. And is that an angry mob not dissimilar to the one we encountered earlier?"

"Looks that way."

"And is that a _chicken_?"

Jack nodded. The scene seemed to depict some arcane ritual involving animal sacrifice and ascension into heaven – or the sky at any rate. The next one along showed an anonymous woman in red, while each successive window depicted various other men and woman. The Doctor looked just as perplexed as Jack felt.

"So what are we going to do?" Jack asked.

"Obvious," said the Doctor, backing away from the church. "What we've got here is some kind of all-powerful religious body, right? The sort of religious body that burns down people's homes. Plus a darkness monster, an inconsistent timeline, and some alien architecture."

"So?"

"So! We find the scientists. In any Religion-dominated society you'll find a highly secret hidden sect of scientists, keeping their heads low and their ideas all written down in codes and what-have-you. Most likely they'll be plotting to overthrow the church and reinstate freedom of thought. But they'll fail, because they're so obsessed with their work they forget to be human for five minutes and start hiring assassins and killing people… Unless that's a Dan Brown book." He frowned in thought for a moment. "Anyway! There'll be scientists around here somewhere. Voices of reason. Someone who can tell us what's going on."

Jack walked a couple of steps behind the Doctor. He usually did, but this time it wasn't for the vantage point it gave him. He was lost in thought, his mind still buzzing from the assault by the unidentifiable creature, distracted by the memory of the Doctor's lips on his own, kissing him back this time, arms holding him close. He thought of all the religions he knew, he thought about light, and he thought about tiny timid little creatures living their short lives dominated by a terror far more primal than mere fear. And he couldn't shake off the sensation of being hunted. His eyes darted around, wary of every shadow, his neck prickling whenever they left the comforting glow of the lamps.

But he trusted the Doctor. He might not be sure what he meant to him, but he had absolute faith in him. Whether he was closest friend, prospective lover, mere plaything, or useful tool didn't matter. As long as he was with the Doctor, he was sure everything would turn out alright. That he would be safe.

He just hoped the Doctor was as confident in his abilities as Jack was.


	3. Chapter 3

Martha drifted from bed to bed as the first doctor – whose name was Agnes Brook – explained things to her. As far as she could, anyway. She had been a doctor at a large hospital nearby before the Unity took over. She couldn't quite fathom out what the Unity were from Agnes's nervous rambling, but they didn't sound good. A religious dictatorship that had risen overnight six years ago, with its base in Britain, and spread across the world. Its one huge advantage seemed to be that even non-conformers like Agnes Brook and her colleagues spoke about their god as if it were fact – Agnes referred to a worship of The Light, in the same way the man back at the temple had. The Unity deemed certain diseases the result of sin or depravity and their hospitals – the entire former NHS – refused to treat sufferers.

And then there were the new illnesses. Strange collections of symptoms started appearing at hospitals shortly before the Unity started to dictate what should be treated and what shouldn't. Any disease not already identified was classified as a punishment from god, and patients with certain symptoms were simply thrown out into the streets, their illnesses left undiagnosed. Some furious medical staff rebelled, some quit, some vanished. Those who rebelled were imprisoned for blasphemy, and those who quit had effectively abandoned their careers, reduced to low level jobs where they could get them. And those who vanished…

"My husband was amongst them," Agnes said. She was leaning over a patient with dozens of large swellings on his face and neck. There was no name on his chart, no identification on him, and no hope of him surviving the night. That didn't stop Agnes from coming back every fifteen minutes to make sure he was comfortable.

"What happened?"

She straightened up, shut her eyes. "You really don't know?"

"Nope. I told you, I'm not from round here."

"Yes, you said. But this was world news."

"Why don't you tell me anyway?"

She sighed. "Me and Rick… well we wanted out, but we knew the rules. We didn't say anything to anybody else. There's no way they could have found out we objected to the new laws…"

"But somehow they did," said Martha quietly.

Agnes nodded. "Those who rebelled were thrown in jail and left there. They're still locked up, just waiting to die… but the rest of us, the ones who were careful… There were twelve of us where we worked, and no one would have betrayed us. But somehow, I was the only one who escaped. I had to go to my mother's before work, and Rick went ahead. He was snowed under. I'd been with my mother for ten minutes when he called. A brief, frantic call, telling me not to come, to ditch my phone, not to go home, to run."

A tear rolled down Agnes's cheek as she stared at the next patient's chart. "They were executed," she whispered. "Publicly. All eleven of them…" She struggled to say the word without breaking down. "Crucified!"

Martha put her arms around the woman's shoulder and pulled her close, but Agnes allowed the comforting embrace only for a moment. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then they moved on once more down the row of beds.

From the other side of the large room came a sudden shout, and Martha once again recognised the man from the car, waving at them from his perch on a windowsill.

"What is it, Martin?" Agnes asked.

"This is it!" he shouted. "This time we really have been rumbled. Out, out, out!"

Martha and Agnes were forced to concede that any bed-ridden patients had to be left, but there were a dozen or so who could be coaxed out of bed, wrapped in warm blankets and bustled out of the back door. One of the nurses brought the horse with them, and Martin followed at the rear, urging everyone on.

Ahead of them was a concrete jungle, a vast city at night, utterly strange and alien to Martha. She could not see any London landmarks, and wondered where exactly they were. She followed Agnes, who seemed to know where she was going, across the car park and into a narrow alleyway. They ran in single file, as silently as possible, between high stone walls topped with barbed wire. Nettles whipped at Martha's denim-clad legs, and gangly vegetation spilled over the tops of the walls, so they had to push it aside and hold it back for those behind, like explorers in the deepest of jungles, plunging forth into the heart of darkness.

Agnes darted out of the alley mouth and seemed to vanish downwards suddenly. Martha only just managed to contain a startled yelp, and then she realised Agnes was running down some ancient stone steps set into the earth. They had emerged into a bleak, unenthusiastic woodland, the trees thin and malnourished, their leaves fading into browns and reds. The terrain sloped alarmingly downwards, and Martha found herself helping to manhandle patients as they attempted to navigate the path.

Once she became aware of Martin at her shoulder, Martha dared to speak. Her voice was a hoarse whisper, but it sliced through the night like a hot knife.

"Who found us? Where are we going?"

"Shh!" This, surprisingly, came from one of the patients. She was a middle aged woman with strange purple bruises on her skin and half of her hair missing. "They hear everything!"

Martin nodded as he urged them onwards. "Plenty of time to chat later. I certainly want to know who you are. For now, move."

Jack was miffed to discover they were now going back the way they had come. His feet were starting to protest from all this walking, and dawn was creeping over the horizon. Everything was bathed in a pinkish glow, and the world looked serene. That is, if you could ignore the bit of it that contained the Doctor.

"Why this way?" Jack demanded.

The Doctor grinned over his shoulder. "Jack! I'm disappointed. We're going this way because of the naked lady."

Jack's eyes bulged. "What?"

"In your newspaper. You kept it, didn't you? Get it out."

Jack pulled the folded sheet from _The Sun_ out of his inside pocket. There was the date at the top, the information the Doctor wanted the paper for. And underneath it was a nubile blonde whose phone number Jack would be willing to give an arm and maybe a leg for.

"Underneath," said the Doctor, not looking back.

Under the girl was an article about how to apply to be a model for the newspaper. Jack read it a couple of times but still could not see why the Doctor was remotely interested:

_We are looking for attractive models between the ages of seventeen and twenty-seven, must be sexy, bubbly and sociable. Applications to 1 Leduc House, Q Zone, London_.

"1 Leduc House," said Jack. "We're going there? Why?"

"Took me a moment to see it," said the Doctor. "I'm getting old, that's what it is. Took me a startlingly long time."

He was fishing for compliments, so Jack supplied. "Well you must be brain city, because I've no clue what you're on about."

"Religious dictatorship? Strongly resembles western Christianity? Those men mentioned a strict adherence to Biblical commands. And yet here we are with a newspaper containing a rather raunchy picture. Not to mention this is no new thing. This city has lived with these conditions for a while, and yet only _tonight_ was the Temple of Dru being destroyed. It must have existed in this part of town for years, nice and safe and ignored. In the same part of town as a newsagents who get a delivery of naughty newspapers last thing at night. This is Sin Town. This is the part of the city the Bible-bashers haven't gained control over yet, and they aren't making much of an effort. Or at least, they haven't until now."

"Doesn't explain why we're going to watch soft-core porn models audition," said Jack. "Not that I'm complaining," he added before he could stop himself.

"We're not. That's where the _applications_ are made to. Newspaper's head office, I hope. I'm willing to pin quite a lot on that hope, mostly due to the name of the place."

"Leduc House?"

"Number _one_ Leduc House, yes. It's an anagram. I Leduc translates to Euclid. I'm willing to bet this Leduc House is a multi-business organisation. Newspaper office, maybe lawyers' offices, estate agents… But the name's too good to slip by me. Euclid wrote the _optica_, an Ancient Greek study of the nature of light."

Jack grabbed the Doctor's arm suddenly as a shadow flitted past him. They both froze in the middle of the road, alert, eyes flickering in all directions.

"Just a shadow," said Jack. He felt utterly embarrassed by his nervousness, but the Doctor was shaking his head.

"No… We're being watched. Can't you feel it?"

Another shadow skirted the edge of the street, like an animal circling its prey. Jack began to shiver, the cold and the fear getting the better of him, but he felt the Doctor's hand fold over his own, the grip almost too tight.

One of the shadow creatures darted across the street, bearing down on them, but the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it.

"Will that help?"

"Light's just energy, and darkness is just the absence of light. The screwdriver is sonic, and sound's just energy too."

The shadow lunged right at Jack, and he felt the reeling sensation again coupled with a desperate need to vomit from the fear. He felt the Doctor pull him close.

"You're not having him!"

Jack's eyes were closed, but it made little difference. He saw the bolt of lightning clear as day through the thin skin of his eyelids, and the thunder deafened him. When he wrenched his eyes open there was a car on fire across the road, and the Doctor was pulling a face at the sonic screwdriver.

"Didn't know it could do that," said Jack.

"…It can't." He held up the device, and Jack could see it was dead, completely burnt out. "Come on. We're defenceless now… let's go and find our scientists."

"Newspaper writers," Jack corrected him.

"Same thing, with a bit of luck."

To Martha's continued amazement, the little party of doctors, nurses, and the handful of patients who could be moved soon found themselves squeezing in single file through a fissure in the forest floor, arms and legs scraping on the exposed rock. Martha dangled her legs through the gap and put off the moment where she had to let go. _God knows what I'm going to land in_, she thought.

"Just let go," snapped Martin, folding his arms above her. He waited for him to add 'it's perfectly safe' or something similarly reassuring, but he just quirked an eyebrow at her, so she let go of the side and fell.

The ground came up to meet her, jolting her knees in their sockets. She had dropped maybe ten inches, no more, and felt disorientated, as if she'd expected more steps than there were in a staircase. Ahead of her, Agnes was on her knees crawling through yet another crack in the rock, and driven mostly by the appearance of feet dangerously close to her head, Martha followed through.

It was difficult to see anything beyond the hole, but the texture of the air changed dramatically. This was a large open space, at least the size of a generous room, and the atmosphere was dry and relatively undisturbed. Suddenly Agnes lit a match, causing Martha to wince against the unexpected light. As she had expected, they appeared to be in an underground cave. The walls were gently curved and made of rough, exposed rock, with the ceiling a few meters above them. Someone had set up a few piles of blankets on the floor as beds, and Martha stood and stared as Martin and Agnes helped the patients into them. Some had to share, and those who were more mobile were asked to sit instead. A couple of nurses broke out an emergency first aid kit and started checking on all the patients, while Agnes and Martin turned their attention to Martha.

"You idiot!" Martin snarled. "You brought them right to us!"

"We don't know that," said Agnes mildly. "You could have brought them. I told you not to bring the car."

"How else was I supposed to transport six cases of penicillin? All lost now, I might add." He shot Martha a vicious glare.

"We'll go back later and see what's left," said Agnes calmly. She laid a hand on Martha's arm. "Right now we owe an explanation."

Martin let out a sharp "ha!" at that, and turned his back on them, apparently deciding to supervise the nurses instead, but Martha could tell he was still listening.

"Where are we?" she asked, for somewhere to start.

"Outside town. Not too far, but far enough. They don't know about this place – I found it myself last year and, well… I've been living here really."

"In a cave?" Martha felt a swell of horror and sympathy. "Must be horrible."

Agnes shrugged. "Could be worse. Look, now you've gotten mixed up in all this I have to ask – who are you?"

A million answers presented themselves for consideration. "A traveller" usually worked, but she suspected this situation might require a bit more than that. If this was a long time in the future, how would they react to the true story of how she got here? Tales of blue dimensionally-complicated space ships seldom went down well with human beings, who would much rather hear that you came by bus.

"I'm… Martha," she managed. "And it doesn't matter who I am. I just want to help, if I can. And I should really look for my friends…"

"See?" said Agnes, apparently to Martin. "She wants to help us."

"So she says. Means nothing."

Agnes smiled apologetically. "Well there's plenty to do if you really want to help out. You could start by changing some dressings, if you like. And then we've got to go back to the warehouse and see what we can salvage."

Martha nodded and crouched down beside the nearest patient. Like the others, his illness was completely mysterious. His heart rate was low, his breathing laboured, and his skin felt cold and dry. Every so often he cried out in agony, but his speech was incomprehensible, and no one could work out where the pain was located.

A chill ran up Martha's spine. This would suggest that they weren't on Earth – or if they were, something had gone extremely wrong.

To be continued…


	4. Chapter 4

With the sonic screwdriver out of action, the Doctor was temporarily stumped when they came face-to-face with a sturdy, imposing wooden door. This street was narrow and old and, by the look of the squat buildings, extremely poor. There was no one around despite the rapid approach of morning, for which the Doctor was thankful when Jack charged past him and introduced his shoulder to the woodwork with extreme force. The door held and Jack bounced harmlessly off, grunting in pain and frustration.

"Completely solid," he reported.

"This is only the front door," the Doctor reminded him.

They skirted round the side of the building, down an alleyway so narrow that Jack had to walk sideways. There were no other doors or windows on this side, but the wall of the building soon gave way to a high iron fence topped with barbed wire. Jack stared up at it, then shook his head.

"We'll rip ourselves to shreds climbing that."

"Yeah," said the Doctor, ambling along the length of the fence. "So good job there's a gate. Long way from the street though. Odd that. Never mind!"

The gate was padlocked, but the Doctor pulled from his pocket something which looked suspiciously like a hair grip. Jack raised an eyebrow.

"It's amazing what you pick up when you travel the universe with an assortment of young women," said the Doctor cheerfully, as the gate sprung open. He put up a hand to hold it shut, then seemed to listen intently.

"I can't hear anything," murmured Jack.

"That's 'cos apes weren't designed for hearing. Not much to listen for way up in the trees, but on the inside of a suspiciously well-defended newspaper office, you'd be amazed what you can deduce with hearing like mine."

"Like what?"

The Doctor pulled a face. "We're not alone. Some kind of creatures…" They exchanged a glance which said quite plainly_, we're not going to find out what it is hanging around out here_, and the Doctor pushed open the gate.

Inside was a large area which had probably started out life as a domestic garden. The Doctor pressed his back to the fence and edged to the right, towards the building. Jack carefully closed the gate and squinted into the gloom.

The first impression he got was of bars. Dozens of cages were arranged around the courtyard, some large like aviaries, some smaller, like rat cages, and from them came a variety of subtle sounds. Invisible things rustled in the darkness, and Jack felt a shudder run up his spine at the memories of his two encounters with the shadow thing. Occasionally something squeaked or grunted. As he strained his ears, Jack could make out a larger sound, lower and deeper, like a huge animal stirring in its sleep, but he couldn't pin point where it came from.

"Private collection?" he mused.

"Dunno." The Doctor ambled across to the nearest cage and squatted down beside it. Jack's hand moved unconsciously to his hip, where his gun was safely holstered, then he chided himself. Whatever was in there couldn't be any bigger than a rabbit.

The Doctor, however, wasn't taking any chances. He gave the sonic screwdriver an angry shake, which failed to help in any way, then resorted to feeding a leaf into the cage to see what happened. Childhood memories rose in Jack's mind, and he expected the leaf to be yanked away and gradually eaten down by some furry, loveable critter.

Instead the cage lurched and the Doctor fell back on his bum, startled. "That," he said, "is no bunny rabbit."

"Alien?" Jack asked.

"Don't think so. Not alien. But there's much worse than alien, if you think about it."

Jack had to admire the Doctor's courage as he reached for the box again.

"Who's a pretty boy then?" the Doctor coo-ed, carefully sliding back the little wooden door in the side. "Who's a fluffy-wuffy freak of nature, eh?"

Something shot out of the cage, and the Doctor lunged at it. It wriggled out from under him, and Jack got the impression of dappled fur and long legs before it vanished into the night.

"Oops," said the Doctor.

Jack stared around at the cages. A few of the creatures stirred in response to the commotion, but nothing really seemed interested in breaking out and attacking them. "Exotic pets?" he wondered aloud.

The Doctor picked himself up and brushed dust and straw off his trousers. "Very exotic. About as exotic as they come. Someone's been playing with a make-your-own-mutant kit. Someone who's not much actual cop with this sort of thing."

"So the newspaper office-"

"Is a front for something way more interesting."

The Doctor grinned in the dark. "You up for some investigating, Jack m'boy?"

He didn't wait for an answer as he scurried off towards the house. Jack trotted after him, padding on silent feet. He didn't know what to expect from this strange place next, and decided he should be prepared for absolutely anything; he still jumped in surprise when the back door slammed open and three people ran out into the garden. Jack cursed his unease – he was never this nervous, whether he was facing blood-thirsty monsters, or just other men with better weapons than he had. He knew the shadow creatures had somehow gotten inside his head and triggered his primal fears, but damn them, did they have to take his style away too?

"Brilliant," said the Doctor cheerfully. "Just the blokes I wanted to see. The blokes and the lady," he corrected himself, winking at the female member of the group. "I was wondering if you could help me with something, you see I-"

"Shut up," said the apparent leader, a tall young man with cropped blond hair. "You're trespassing."

The Doctor's eyes widened in surprise. "Are we? Crikey, I'm sorry. Here, Jack, did you realise we were trespassing? I had literally _no_ idea-"

"Shut up," said the blond again. "Who are you? Show some I.D."

Within moments The Doctor was shoving his psychic paper right up to the man's nose. "There you are. I.D. Happy now?"

The man's eyes widened. "Sir! I'm sorry. Let us escort you to the labs."

"Too right."

The three newcomers led the way into the house, their demeanour now far less aggressive. The woman and the dark-toned man kept glancing back at the Doctor, their expressions a mixture of awe and curiosity.

Jack raised a questioning eyebrow; the Doctor shrugged and shook his head. It would clearly be interesting to find out who these people thought he was.

They were escorted into the house through the back door, which faced onto a flight of stairs. Blondy led the way up, into a long, narrow passageway with several doors off it. The Doctor and Jack were ushered through the first door, behind which was a small, dimly lit laboratory. Heavy blankets covered the windows, and the only illumination came from two thin strips on the ceiling. Like every good lab in the universe, this one was lined with shelves of mysterious things in jars. Weird, eyeless faces grinned out of the gloom, until Jack realised they were skulls – some human, some animal, and some quite definitely alien.

The middle of the room was dominated by a large work station covered in technical equipment, data pads, and bits of paper. The Doctor made straight for it, grabbing a weird, convoluted tube and breaking into a delighted grin.

"An amino acid extractor! Haven't seen one of those in _years_. That's a nice bit of kit. Means you're breaking down and re-arranging DNA. Genius! Oh," he added, his expression clouding over, "but that's bad. That's really, really bad. I mean really, really, really, _really-"_

"Put that down."

The Doctor blinked in bemusement, as if the words made no sense to him. Jack was impressed – the voice wasn't loud or particularly stern, but it contained an air of command which made Jack want to snap to attention. A man detached himself from the shadows of the far side of the room, and held out a hand for the extractor.

"Don't think so," said the Doctor, and he casually smashed the tube on the side of the workbench.

The man's expression did not change. In his early fifties, and dressed in a plain suit and bone-white lab-coat, he met the Doctor gaze for gaze.

"Do you realise how much that piece of equipment cost?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Ten a penny where I'm from."

"And where might that be?

"Oh, just a little planet you've probably never heard of. I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is Jack Harkness. Say hello, Jack."

"We found them near the cages," said Blondy. "They let one of the creatures loose."

"Which one?"

"Looked a bit like a vorchut," said the Doctor helpfully. "Kind of giant rabbit thing with spindly legs… nasty little buggers. I didn't catch your name," he added, holding out a hand to the grey haired man.

"Say the word and we'll get rid of them," said Blondy.

"You'll try," Jack growled, hand on his blaster.

The Doctor made a dismissive noise. "Scientists killing people? Biggest bloody waste of flesh in the universe, scientists that kill people. You want to be discovering things and pushing back frontiers and… well, mucking about with stuff you shouldn't, but you seem to have a good grip on that one. But killing people? That's the sort of thing science is supposed to stop. You're meant to advance humanity, not haul it off and have it quietly extinguished in a little room with a great big padlock and soundproof walls."

The older man coughed discreetly. "He meant throw you out. Killing you would indeed be safer, but we do not stoop to savagery here."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Quite." He held up a device which looked like a small digital camera and pointed it at Jack.

"None of that, thanks," said the Doctor, snatching the thing out of his hand. "We've both had our share of memory misadventures, ta muchly. We'll be keeping all we've seen up here though, don't you worry." He tapped his forehead to emphasise his point.

"Yeah right," said Blondy. "You're obviously spies."

"We're obviously no such thing. If I was a spy, I'd have come in the dead of night and shinned up the drainpipe, not at the crack of dawn and through the gate."

The impassive face of the chief scientist moved for the first time; he raised an eyebrow.

"I believe you," he said. "But if you are not spies, then who are you?"

"You… believe us? Just like that?"

"Yes."

"We're travellers," said Jack. "Just explorers."

"And it seems to us you've got a bit of a problem re some all-consuming new religious bods who popped up over night. Thought we might, you know, lend a hand, see what can be done, but if you'd rather we leave…"

He seemed to mull it over, then extended a hand. "My name is Dr Comma. And you are correct. We do seem to have something of a problem."

The Doctor pulled up a stool and sat down. "Tell me."

"Very well. Although I find it hard to believe you are on this planet, yet know nothing of the Light."

"Like we said, we travel. A lot."

Dr Comma waved a hand to dismiss his lackeys. Reluctantly, Blondy left the room, followed by his accomplices.

"It started six tears ago," said Comma, in that clipped, precise voice. "In London. Representatives of the major religions – Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and the like – were meeting with the Prime Minister and his cabinet to plead their case. They longed to cling to the last vestiges of their waning power, but the Prime Minister was reluctant. He wanted any religion with a significant influence on people's thoughts to be disbanded, and with good cause. He had much support in the scientific community, and in the general population. After the last war, who can claim the churches were in no way responsible for countless deaths? No, organised religion is dangerous. And the Prime Minister was right to try to abolish it."

"What happened?"

"The meeting went badly for the representatives. I was there, as a scientific advisor to the government. The cases presented were weak and badly prepared, and I was able to dismantle any credibility they still had. Half way through the meeting, something happened, something which, to this day, I cannot explain. A being appeared in the room, luminous and radiant. Humanoid. Hovering just above the floor, arms wide as though to embrace us all. It struck down the Prime Minister and killed him instantly. Then it told the group of representatives that they were all right – and that they were all wrong. They were to unify, to join forces, to become one. And they all believed what they were seeing was the physical manifestation of the deity or deities they had devoted their lives to."

"…And?"

"They did as it said. Christianity was abolished, and Islam forgotten, and Judaism torn down like the Tower of Babel. Even the token Buddhist of the group believed he was seeing a Buddha, but… well, we all know what happened to those philosophers. The various establishments joined together to form the United Divine Order. Religious fervour gripped the country, and then the continent, with everyone worshipping this entity that called itself The Light. It took little time for the new religion to spread across the seas, but this deity was eager to present itself to humanity, so its existence is undeniable. All people converted. In America, in Africa, even in Asia. Rebels are struck down. Anyone voicing doubts is hunted and put on trial, if they're lucky. But that is not all.

"A fleet of ships were approaching Earth. Nobody knew about them. It took time until our sensors detected them, and panic started to spread. Five years ago, shortly after the last of the American Bible-Belt was converted, the ships entered Earth's atmosphere. Hundreds of them! The size of cities, and bristling with weapons. Torchwood was disbanded by the Unity, so we were defenceless. Or so we thought. The Light rose from the ground and shot towards the fleet. There was a moment of extreme brilliance, and the fleet was gone. There was no aftershock, no radiation, no sonic boom. They were just… gone."

Jack frowned. "You're saying you believe in this… Light thingy?"

Dr Comma shrugged. "I have seen it with my own eyes."

"But you hide up here. In the dark."

"I do no submit, if that's what you mean. I do not worship any entity, and I do not acknowledge its divinity."

"Good!" said the Doctor. "We might just have a chance of fighting it, then."

Comma laughed. "Fight it? Be reasonable, man! We don't even know what it is."

"No, but we're going to find out. Me and Jack, we'll go out there and find it. Then we'll figure out what to do."

"I'm sorry, Doctor." Comma shook his head. "I believe you are indeed on our side, such as it is, but you must remain here for the time being. The risk that the Unity may find us is too great. We use… certain subtle methods to draw those who would join us here, but they are put through many tests to determine their loyalty. We can take no risks."

"But this part of town is safe, isn't it? Not controlled by the Unity?"

"It is… ignored, for the most part. Every so often they try to move in and destroy what vestiges remain of the old religions, but we do them little harm, and they have more pressing concerns. Nevertheless, this area is small, and you may find yourself lost and captured. You will remain here."

Jack began to protest, but the Doctor shook smiled. "Fine. Good. There's lots I want to see here. Lots of questions to be asked. Like why the heck you're breeding mutant rabbits in the back garden. And where you got all these skulls. And why this Light thingy didn't kill you when it struck down the Prime Minister…"

Comma opened his palms in a gesture which said the answer should be obvious. "I am a man of science, and I saw The Light with my own eyes. It let me live so I could sway the opinions of my colleagues. When I expressed my doubts, the Unity proclaimed me a wanted man. If they find me, they will kill me. I have caused them too much trouble – but not enough that they are actively searching. For now."

"This thing's gotta be an alien," said Jack.

"The Light does not allow aliens on Earth."

"Because it _is_ one, maybe. Doesn't want it's story rumbled. Some other advanced species could give the game away, tell everyone it isn't actually god."

The Doctor nodded. "I'm thinking much the same thing. If I can find out where it's from, and what it's up to, I reckon I can put a stop to it."

To be continued…


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor and Jack found themselves led down two flights of stairs to a system of basements, which, according to Blondy, were used as guest rooms and storage space. The scientists themselves left the building during the day and returned under the cover of darkness, except for those who were refugees from the Unity, or had lost their homes some other way. They had quarters on the second floor, above the laboratories, and Jack hoped for their sake that they were in better condition than the basements.

Their quarters turned out to be one wide, square room, lit only by the weak tendrils of daylight that made it through the high slit of a window. Scrupulously clean and tidy, by at the same time stark and Spartan, it reminded Jack of nothing more than a prison cell.

They had a basin, and a modest selection of basic food, as well as a stack of yellowing books and magazines. Just enough to say 'you are guests, not prisoners', but not nearly enough to make Jack feel they were the kind of guests you invite over for long weekends; more the kind that show up and you have to be polite to until they leave again.

Two clean but elderly mattresses occupied the far side of the room from the door, just underneath the window. Coarse blankets sat on the ends, and seemed to have been folded by someone very stern who owned a ruler.

"No expense has been spared," said the Doctor, gazing around. "Literally. I wonder how these people steal enough to eat themselves, never mind provide for us…"

Without speaking, and without either of them making any kind of conscious decision, they both ended up lying together on the same mattress. The Doctor, still in shirt and tie, stretched out, hands behind his head, and shut his eyes. Jack curled up on his side, one hand gripping the Doctor's arm. The thought of being left alone while he slept chilled him with fear. He silently cursed the shadow monster, and its lingering effects on his mind.

He had no idea how he was ever going to sleep again.

"Let me tell you a story," said the Doctor suddenly.

"A story?" said Jack. "How old do you think I am, exactly?"

The Doctor grinned, and his teeth shone in the dim light of dawn. "Oh, this isn't a story for children. Dear me, no. This story, even adults are afraid to hear, and with good reason. It's a story of savagery and greed, of jealousy and wrath and injustice. You've heard it before, hundreds of times, but never like this."

Jack propped himself up on his elbow, so that he could see the Doctor's face as he spoke. They were both cast in deep shadow, and the Doctor's features were sharp and smooth in the wrong places, so that he looked tired, and old.

"Alright then, Doctor. A story. Make it good."

The world shrank inwards like a piece of paper being crumpled up from the inside, until there was nothing but the Doctor, grinning in the dark.

"Once upon a time, long ago, there was a tiny little planet, all shiny and new. It had not long ago been formed out of rocks and dust, and the breath of a divinity named the Great Being. It was a harsh and inhospitable place of vicious heat in the middle, and murderous cold at either end, but nonetheless it was a beautiful little planet. Still is, if you squint. One of my absolute favourites.

"After a while, the Great Being brought about a group of funny little creatures, which it blessed with lots of very nifty skills. They were certainly a plucky lot. Resourceful. They soon learned many ways to make their little planet give them some of the things they needed. They learned how to make and use tools, and they invented languages so that they could record their thoughts and ideas for eternity.

"But something was missing. These funny little creatures were good with their axes and spears, but they weren't at the top of the food chain yet. Lots of bigger, and far less funny creatures thought they made a good snack, especially since they had no inconvenient body hair to choke on, and no in-built means of defending themselves. In short, they were bald and defenceless.

"In winter, they would get too cold, and without fur to warm them, they often died in the snow. They couldn't build bridges over wide rivers, so often they drowned. And when it was very hot, their skin flaked and peeled, and they burned.

"These weren't their only problems. The creatures were inquisitive by nature. Always poking their noses into things which didn't directly concern them. Curiosity killed more than just the proverbial cat. The creatures wanted to know who they were. That's all any of us wants, really. Who am I, where am I, and which direction should I go?

"They asked other questions too. What are those lights in the sky? Why aren't they there during the day? What happens if I mix this with that, or drop this from a tree, or bury that under a rock for a hundred years? How come my parents both have blue eyes, but mine are brown? What's behind that mountain over there? How many quantum physicists does it take to change a light bulb? Endless questions.

"They asked and asked and asked, but the Great Being, who they worshipped, was ignorant and selfish and jealous. It denied the creatures all their answers, even the really obvious ones that anyone could work out with a calculator and half a brain. It told them that it, the Great Being, was the only truth they need concern themselves with, and so long as they continued to worship it unquestioningly, it would let them burn and freeze and drown in their own time, without lending the process a hand.

"But the Great Being had servants other than the funny little creatures, and his favourite servant was named Eosphoros. Eosphoros is the hero of our story, because he saw the naked, ignorant animals shivering in the cold, and he stole fire right out from under the Great Being's nose, and he took it to the nasty, soggy, freezing place – Wales, I reckon – where the creatures lived.

"'I've brought you light,' said Eosphoros, 'so that you may be warm, and so you can see in the darkness.'

"But the creatures were reluctant to take the fire, 'cos the Great Being had forbidden it to them."

Jack shook his head. "You're getting two stories mixed up."

"I told you. There are different versions."

"And I'm guessing yours is the true version of events, then?"

"No. It's just a story. No version is true. And every version is. Can I continue, please, Mr Butt-in-ski?"

Jack shifted so that his head lay on the Doctor's narrow chest. Twin rhythms echoed in his ear. He smiled as the Doctor hooked a warm, possessive arm over his shoulders.

"Go ahead."

"Right. Well The creatures were forbidden by the Great Being from having fire, and since they were scared of what the Being could do to them, they rather rudely sent Eosphoros away from their home, and went back to living up to their elbows in mud and snakes.

"But Eosphoros knew the Great Being's secret, being his favourite servant and all. He knew that the Being had no powers over the creatures which they did not give to it themselves. Eosphoros also knew the naked little apes wouldn't last much longer without the fire, so he came up with a plan. He took the most inquisitive of all the creatures, a bright and exceptionally nosey young female, and told her that the fire was the source of the Great Being's power. If they took it, they would be made greater, and the Being made lesser. They would have all the power, and all the answers, they could want.

"The female was clever enough to know that her people needed the fire to survive, so she took it from Eosphoros and returned home, where she shared the light and the warmth with everyone.

"Now that they had fire, the creatures could keep warm and dry in winter, and they could cook their food, which was good because it no longer felt like they were forced to eat at Little Chef every day. They could scare away the big bad beasties of the night, and offer its warmth in trade for the help and friendship of dogs and cats.

"They could also use their fire to make better tools out of metal, and they began to build cities. Having fire meant they didn't have to spend every minute of every day worrying about weather and predators, and so they started to find ways of answering all the questions that were forbidden to them before.

"Eventually, they no longer had to rely on the Great Being to protect them, and so they neglected their duties to it. They began to forget all about its threats and demands, and they forged their own paths through time, just like Eosphoros hoped they would. Soon, they found lots of much less horrible things to replace the Great Being, like television and the internet. They generally had a lot more fun, knew a lot more facts, and were a heck of a lot happier than they had ever been, sitting outside in the mud.

"Not surprisingly, the Great Being was furious. It needed the creatures to manipulate and subjugate because fear and oppression were all it understood. It wanted the creatures to love and admire it; but it tried to secure their love by denying them an existence without it.

"The Great Being knew it was Eosphoros who was the traitor. It brought its wrath down on its former servant. For bringing the creatures enlightenment, Eosphoros was cast down into darkness."

Jack let the silence linger as he mulled the Doctor's story over in his head. "That's it?" he said.

"Course not. Don't be daft. There's lots more after that. In the light of science, the world would never be the same again." He stared up at the ceiling for a long while, then said, quietly, "that's how easy it is to take a story and twist it, to change the meaning without changing anything else."

Jack watched the shaft of glittering sunlight fall from the high window to the floor. A million dust motes danced in its glow. _That's us_, he thought. _Flecks of dust desperate to stay in the sunlight, fearing the darkness, afraid of being left out in the cold and the rain once more._

Jack gripped the Doctor's hand tightly. The Doctor squeezed back. Jack hadn't slept in many months, but here, finally safe in the Doctor's arms, he felt his eyelids grow heavy, and his limbs felt heavy and clumsy, like his mind no longer had control over them. He yawned noisily, and snuggled in closer to the Doctor, and the light began to fade.

"Go to sleep Jack," murmured a soft voice from somewhere very distant now. "I'll still be here when you wake up."

To be continued.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** some concern has been expressed both here and on livejournal about the frequency with which this story is updated. I have no intention of abandoning this story, and at the moment it's more or less writing itself, but I can't guaruntee regular updates, mostly because I have the attention span of a stunned sultana. The best bet is to put this story on your watch list, or friend me if you're reading this on LJ. And of course, feedback is proportional to a writer's inclination to continue!

* * *

Sunlight in a multitude of colours dappled the open courtyard at the very heart of the Temple of the Light. Cleric Dominic Samuel Fletcher had always found that to be a little ironic.

Sam was twenty-nine years old, and had trained as a Catholic priest for most of his adult life. Before that, his childhood was spent in Catholic school, diligently reading the Bible, and learning theology from his grandfather. His best childhood memories were of his Confirmation, when he had taken the name of Saint Dominic, and his most prized possession was the leather-bound Bible his grandmother gave him before she died.

When the true nature of God was revealed six years ago, Sam was right at the front of the queue to convert. He did not find it difficult to cast aside the trappings and obscure conventions of Roman Catholicism, and adopt the new, minimalist laws of the Unity. They suited him fine. His duties remained the same, but all the nonsensical rules and regulations were cast aside. Everything was, all of a sudden, blindingly simple; there was God, and there was the darkness, and you had the choice between the two. If you chose the Light, you would live forever after your death, and if you chose the darkness… well, these days that was a _lot_ more simple. In his previous life, Sam had observed atheists and non-Catholics going about, living perfectly happy, prosperous lives, and something at the back of his mind was uneasy about that. If these people were living in sin, why was nothing being done to correct it? Why did god allow it? Punishing them after death was hardly going to help in the long run, was it?

These days, if you didn't commit to the Light, if you didn't attend regular services, if you denounced the faith or performed any forbidden acts, you were imprisoned. If the First Illuminate felt like making an example of you, an example was well and truly made. If you still refused to commit, you were… disposed of.

Not that the Unity wasn't merciful. There were ample opportunities to commit before anything very final happened to you. And for every single person made an example of, hundreds more around the world came out from the shadows and the dark places where they hid, and denounced the old ways. The world was improved. Progress was made. And it was right.

But, that day he declared himself to no longer be a Catholic, the day he _converted_, and inescapable niggly doubt wormed its way into his mind. He did his very best to ignore it, and most of the time it didn't bother him. But sometimes, late at night, when it was very dark in his white-walled room, it came out to taunt him.

It was the word 'convert' that troubled him. There was something contradictory in the First Illuminate's summons for all religious officials to convert, and his declaration that they were combining the faiths, reconciling the fractured strata of human beliefs, and constructing one unified force of faith, in worship of the being who was the embodiment of every god ever worshipped. The Christians weren't breaking the first commandment, the Muslims' devotion to Allah was not made void, and even the pantheists couldn't complain because all their deities were simply different fractions of the light.

But the Light itself appeared to them and asked them to convert. No one else seemed to notice the discrepancy; only Sam Fletcher, who said nothing, and stepped forward without hesitation.

_This is my life_, he told himself. _Without this I have wasted everything._

After a while the suspicion faded and was replaced with relief. As a founding member of the Temple, he was the recipient of many privileges. He had a modest but comfortable home in the cloister, a regular wage, and stood above suspicion from the Temple's new enforcement sect. It was a good life. More to the point, it was a safe life.

The next time Sam Fletcher felt that familiar flutter of doubt was when he laid eyes on his new protégé. Several years younger than him, but taller and far more handsome, Joe Colling was assigned to him for training by the Arch Lector. Sam would never forget standing in the wide, cold office, trying to concentrate on the Lector's words of instruction, and finding himself thoroughly distracted by the angles and lines of his new student, the red of his lips, and the swell of muscles beneath his shirt. He thought of the sixth Law of the Light, and realise how thoroughly stupid it was.

And then he thought; if the sixth Law is stupid, what stops all the others from being stupid as well?

He said nothing, but the impure thoughts, and the nagging doubts swam around his brain as he half-listened to the Arch Lector telling this student how devoted and well-versed Sam was, how much he would learn from him, how honoured he should be to train under him.

He said nothing, and he taught Joe – beautiful, brilliant Joe – the ways of the Temple, and he told himself that his doubts were nothing more than a test. A test he could do nothing but pass.

For three months he pushed nails through the flesh of his left thigh every time Joe waltzed unbidden through his thoughts. After three months, Joe went away to study with a different mentor, one geared more towards his particular areas of theological interest.

Part of Sam was thoroughly relived.

Most of him wanted to cry until he vomited, then vomit until he choked to death.

These days he didn't think of Joe very often. These days he had larger problems to worry about. Larger suspicions, too.

That morning, the Arch Lector had approached him and talked to him about the Shadowland. The Shadowland was the part of town where people did not worship the light, but Sam had never been there, and never had cause to think about it before. In truth he regarded it as nothing more than a myth. If people didn't worship the Light, why on Earth did they get up in the morning? What answers could they possibly find to all the questions that raged day and night through the human mind? Who did they think made the world, and where did they think they came from? He considered the idea that the dissidents didn't ask themselves these questions, and that was why the answers did not concern them, but that made no sense. If they did not ask the questions, they could not come up with the wrong answers. It was wrong answers that worried the Unity, not no answers.

The Arch Lector wanted Sam to go to the Shadowland and gather intelligence. Sam had been on an intelligence gathering mission before, in the very early days of the Unity, and he had not liked it. His mission took him to a garden of Buddhist monks, who gave him tea and food, and answered all his questions with a polite serenity that troubled him. When he returned to the Temple, he could do nothing but tell the truth; a truth that ensured that those kindly souls were imprisoned, or worse.

Sam was rather hoping that there would be no intelligence in the Shadowland to gather. If they simply did not know of the Light, he could show them, and no one else would have to vanish off the streets, and later show up in a very public place, in a very undignified situation. But he knew, deep down, that this was not the case. The dissidents, or so he was told, included clergymen who would not convert, and those from converted families who wouldn't cooperate.

They also included a large number of scientists. The Temple had a scientific wing, where learned men wrote paper after paper on how the Light brought the world into being, and that was good. But scientists understood many things which Sam could not. They knew many deeper truths. If so many scientists refused to convert, what was it they knew and Sam did not?

As he ambled sedately across the plaza, his head bowed and his arms folded, his mind buzzed with possibilities. He wondered how possible it was for a wall of the Temple to collapse and cripple him, excusing him from ever having to go anywhere near the Shadowland, and he thought it just might be possible that the Arch Lector would forget he had burdened Sam with this task. He was, after all, a very elderly man and couldn't be expected to remember everything.

But he knew this was another test. Another trial for his faith, a trial it would have to pass, if only because he had nothing else to fall back on.

He would shut his eyes, and cover his ears, and venture forth into the darkness.

* * *

The Doctor laughed out loud when Dr Comma lifted the creature from its pen.

"That is _fantastic_! Genius! And completely and utterly wrong," he added, his expression suddenly serious.

"It's a weasel," said Jack, who was far less impressed.

"Weasily recognisable," said the Doctor vaguely. "How long did it take you to do this?"

Comma smirked. "Not long. I had the idea many years ago, and the technology to achieve it, but that was mere months before the Unity arose. It has taken me six years to gather together the necessary equipment. This creature was bred in a complex of rooms beneath your quarters, and it is the first of its kind to survive to maturity."

"It's green," said Jack. "You have spent time and money in created a green weasel. And you," he added, catching the Doctor's eye, "are inordinately impressed by this. The only logical conclusion is that I'm missing something."

"Actually it's albino," said Dr Comma. "It has pink eyes and no pigment in its fur or skin. We had to assimilate the photosystems into the layer of fat beneath the skin. Not optimal, but the damn chemical isn't optimal anyway. Now, if we could create a black pigment which-"

"Still missing something here," said Jack. "Biology was never my subject. You've endowed the weasel with green pigmentation? There are no green mammals."

"Green plants, though," said the Doctor, who was grinning again. "Seriously, this is genius. I want to hug you. And at the same time I want to lock you in a little room with no windows and a big old deadlock seal on the door, so you can't ever do anything like this again."

"Don't you see?" said Comma. "This proves there is no creator god. Never has been. If men have the ability to achieve this, why can't god?"

The Doctor picked up the weasel to give Jack a better view. He could see now that its green colour came from beneath its thick, transparent fur, and that its eyes were pale pink in the lamp light. It looked utterly ridiculous, and he failed to see why the Doctor was hailing it as genius.

"Why are plants green, Jack?" said the Doctor, tickling the little animal under its chin.

"I always wondered that, because they clash horribly with the sky."

"Chlorophyll! It's a pigment, the chemical that makes plants green. And also the chemical which allows them to absorb energy from sunlight to grow and survive. They absorb additional nutrients from the soil, but light is the really important bit. If animals could produce chlorophyll and perform photosynthesis in their cells, there would never be any food shortages, and nothing would ever have to die to sustain something else."

"Thus proving god cannot possibly be omnipotent and benevolent at the same time," added Comma.

"Right. 'Cause if God was the great bloke they all say he is, why design a system like the food chain, which is inherently evil? Lower creatures die to sustain higher creatures. But god says 'thou shall not kill'. A bit of hypocrisy there, if you ask me."

He found a bit of biscuit in the pocket of his coat, and fed it to the weasel. "I'm going to call him Kelly. Kelly Green."

"He is designated experiment 408."

"Well now he's designated Kelly," said the Doctor decisively, putting Kelly carefully back into his cage. "What else have you loonies got?"

Comma moved on to a wooden hutch, towards the far end of the garden, hidden from view behind a low wall. The hutch was next to a pond on a raised, transparent dais, so they could see the animals swimming beneath the water. Jack could see several fish of various shapes and sizes, as well as a couple of newt-like creatures, and a big toad. Comma switched the lamp off, and suddenly the area was awash with a dim glow, emanating from the creatures.

"I know this one," he said. "Bioluminescence. Used to lure prey or a date for the night. It'd certainly pique my interest."

Comma raised an eyebrow, but the Doctor was unfazed. "Very pretty," he said. "Not terribly groundbreaking, though.

Comma opened the hutch and removed another weasel.

"Okay, that's a smidge more impressive," the Doctor had to admit. "I'm going to call _him_ Beebe. After Beebe's monster. And seriously, that is pretty monstrous…"

Jack had to shield his eyes against the glare. While the creatures in the pond gave off no more than a dim glow, the weasel practically shone in the dark.

"Most bioluminescence produces light from chemical reactions, rather than absorption from the environment, but certain types of plankton undergo phosphorescence, which is much more useful. It takes in energy, then lets it back out again slowly. Usually that just produces a nice glow, but…" Comma shrugged. "Energy is energy. All we need to do is tweak a few things…"

The Doctor looked alarmed. "And what?" he demanded.

"Well, we'd have a highly efficient biological energy weapon-"

"Don't even think those thoughts," the Doctor hissed, his voice low and sharp. "I'm serious, don't even _think_ it."

"But if we could endow higher forms of life with such an ability-"

"Are you listening to me? That is insane – that's worse than insane, but they haven't got a word for it yet! Believe me, once you start going down that road there's no turning back, and you do _not_ want to become… You don't even want to know what you don't want to become. Never think about it again. I am deadly serious."

Comma stared at him for a long moment, then nodded once. The Doctor exhaled.

"Good." He stared at the glowing weasel still in his arms. "On the other hand, though… nothing wrong with maybe a touch of genetic sorcery in the name of self-defence. I've got one or two funny little ideas of my own, but I'm saving those for later. I'm going to go ahead and guess the only reason you're showing us all this is because you trust us."

Comma nodded again. "I have heard reports from one of my people, who saw you arrive in a blue box. Intriguing technology. And far advanced from ours."

"You have no idea how far advanced. But yeah, that's my funny blue box. And you reckon me and my advanced technology can put the world to rights."

"Can you?"

"'Course I can. That's what I do. What we do," he added, handing Jack the weasel. Jack smiled in appreciation of the recognition, then he realised a warm, damp sensation was spreading across his torso. Dr Comma wrinkled his nose.

"We have some spare shirts upstairs," he said, taking a step away from Jack.

The Doctor was grinning again. "Right!" he said. "Plan of action! First we get Jack cleaned up, then we have a nice cup of tea and a bikky while I study a map of the city, then we try and work out where Martha's wandered off to. We find Martha, find the blokes running this new religion, ask them nicely to stop, then I reckon it'll be time for another cuppa. Sound good?"

"I like the first part best."

"Let's go!"


	7. Chapter 7

It was an hour after sunset when Agnes and Martha emerged from the cave in the woods, and started along a rough track through the trees.

Martha was feeling an odd mixture of excitement and disgust. On the one hand, she hadn't changed her clothes in two days, she was covered in dirt and dust from the cave, and blood from the patients, and she was surrounded by hopeless, desperate, dying people who looked to her and Agnes for help as though they were gods of some sort. And yet, this was exactly why she had always wanted to be a doctor; not to sit around in an office filling out prescriptions for acne cream, but to go out into the world and make a difference to people's lives. This was where a doctor belonged, not in a First World hospital being lectured on super-bugs, or setting her pager to play the latest hit single whenever she was needed to persuade senile old men to take their tablets.

In the last couple of days, she felt like she had learned more about her profession from Agnes than any of her superiors or lecturers back in London. The young doctor was both wise and compassionate, but when necessary she could be ruthless. The previous morning had been a very good example; their supply of penicillin was running lethally low, with two patients desperate for another dose. One, an old man with a mysterious infection, would be dead within the week whether he got his medicine or not, while a young woman, with a far better chance of survival in the long run, was marginally less desperate.

Until now, Martha would have given the final dose to the old man every single time. But not Agnes.

"Our job as doctors is not to prolong the inevitable," she explained, through the tears, as they laid the man's body out on a white sheet. "Our job is to give life the best possible chance. Whatever it takes, however much it hurts us."

There was something about Agnes that reminded Martha of the Doctor, and it occurred to her as she followed through the brambles and clinging ferns that she had scarcely given a thought to the Doctor, or to Jack, since teaming up with the outcase doctors.

And then something else occurred to her.

Agnes barely spoke as they started uphill, towards the city. She looked thinner than ever, with horrible dark marks under her eyes. Her hair was dark with grease, her clothes even more stained and torn than Martha's. The lab coat she wore with the same pride as Jack wore his captain's greatcoat was more brown and black than while, but she didn't remove it, even when thorns scratched at it, and she had to hitch it up to climb safely over an ancient stile. Her quiet determination in the face of such horrors made Martha think of her as a Florence Nightingale figure. The lady with the lamp.

Except they were running low on power cells for their portable surgical lights, as well as old-fashioned candles. But the comparison was hardly an exaggeration.

Soon they reached a narrow strip of tarmac which had once been a road. Now, the houses on either side were abandoned, and some of the brickwork was blackened by fire. Agnes stopped and looked around.

"The old Shadowland," she explained. "We used to have a much larger area of the city to hide in, but the Unity's first attempt to rein us in resulted in…" she gestured around. "This."

The street wasn't completely deserted. A couple of beggars huddled in a doorway, the house behind them gutted and windowless, the paint on the door blistered and flaking. They didn't even look up when Martha fished a chocolate bar out of her pocket and handed it to the younger one.

"Why don't you go inside?" she said. "Looks like it's going to rain tonight."

They didn't respond, but the older one took the food and broke it in half. Agnes tugged at her sleeve, and they moved on.

"Why don't they go inside?"

"Ever smelled a body that's been dead for almost a year?"

Martha looked up at the houses as they passed by. "The dead are still in there?"

"Would you want to get them all out?"

"But… you could have done something…"

Agnes just shrugged. "Too busy taking care of the living. The Unity wants this land, and they can have it, corpses and all."

Martha shuddered but said nothing. Before long they stopped outside a house like all the others, but which looked utterly out of place. The door had a fresh coating of blue paint, and so did the walls at the corners – where flames might once have left sooty black marks. Someone had even put up a set of net curtains in the ground floor windows. Martha heard herself laugh out loud.

"It's that or cry," said Agnes dryly. She knocked on the window pane.

"Who lives here?" said Martha.

"I do."

They spun round, startled, and Martha realised a thin young man was standing behind them.

"Hello!" he said, cheerfully. "What can I do for you? Oh…" he squinted at Agnes. "I know you. You're one of the doctors renting the first floor?"

Agnes smiled. "That's right, Mr Simms. Usually my friend comes to collect the stuff, but it's my turn today. I'm Agnes, and this is Martha."

Martha couldn't help but stare as she shook the man's hand. He wore dull black clothes, and a white collar loose around his neck, because the collar of his shirt had been torn off long ago.

"You're a vicar?"

"I was. A long time ago now. Please, come in."

As she followed Agnes up the stairs to the first floor, Martha whispered, "he makes you pay to rent one floor of a manky old house in a ghost town?"

"Yes," said Agnes. "It is his house, after all. It's all he's got left, and it's more than most of us have."

The hallway and staircase could have belonged to any terraced house Martha had ever seen in her life, but here and there were harsh reminders that this was a desolate, god-forsaken part of town. A photo in a frame showed a happy, smiling man with a happy, smiling girl, but if you looked closely you could see it was only half of a larger picture; the left-hand side was brown and crinkled, with melted plastic bubbles just visible before the frame. The carpet was extremely worn, and hadn't been hovered in a long time. Black flecks and grey dust were heaped at the sides of the stairs. The small table in the hall was well polished, and everything on it neatly arranged, but it was missing the bottom of one leg, supported by an elderly copy of the Yellow Pages.

Mr Simms said "I'll just put the kettle on!" and ambled off into the kitchen. Agnes had produced a key, and opened the door at the top of the stairs.

Inside was what had once been a master bedroom; indeed, a mouldering double bed was still visible beneath the boxes and crates that were piled on every surface.

"Medical supplies," Agnes explained, heading straight for the nearest box. "Plundered from the Unity and stored here. We ration it, so we've usually got plenty, but we're starting to run low."

"Doesn't look it."

"One room full of drugs," said Agnes simply. "Dozens of chronically ill people, and hundreds, if not thousands, who rely on us for medical care. It's nothing like enough."

Agnes hefted one box in her arms, and gestured with her foot to another. "These will do for now. Should see us through until we find a new shelter."

"About that," said Martha. "I think I might be able to help."

* * *

Sam Fletcher shook his head in disbelief. In front of him was the squad of Enforcers that was to accompany him into the Shadowland, and that was fine. They had an average height of six feet, were suitably well-muscled so that if a fight broke out, Sam could safely cower somewhere while they dealt with it, and they were clad in thin, but extremely tough body armour. They weren't soldiers, they were knights in bright white armour. They even carried ceremonial swords on their left hips, while extremely un-ceremonial guns were holstered discretely on their rights. 

After all these years, Sam was still mildly intimidated by the Enforcers. He outranked them considerably, but he was acutely aware that outranking someone else was a very tenuous thing at best. It was all in the mindset, and if that person decided you did not, in fact, outrank them in some aspect, the whole system blew apart like so much dust in the wind. As long as they all stuck to the conventions of their society, he could order them to hack their own balls off with their ridiculous swords, and they would be duty-bound to obey. But as soon as one of them realised how frail and, frankly, stupid the system was, he lost any semblance of power he'd ever had.

He was tempted to give that order at times, purely to see how many of them obeyed, and whether any of them had the guts to refuse, knowing the punishment for disobeying orders. It was quite definitely worse than self-castration. Sam shuddered at the thought.

But no. The Illuminates weren't that stupid, not by a long shot, and they would never have handed a weapon to anyone they thought could turn traitor in any eventuality. That basically meant the only people who qualified as Enforcers were one hundred percent devout, one hundred percent muscle, and one hundred percent void of imagination. That meant you sometimes had to watch what you said around them; asking them to comb the surrounding area was likely to end up with them raiding the nearest barber shop for the appropriate equipment. But in general it meant that, so long as you used plain speech, they would do exactly what you wanted.

Surreal though the enforcers were, they weren't what was worrying Sam the most. The really worrying thing was barely five feet tall, and standing meekly in front of him with an expression of purest innocence and naivety; a seer.

Sam had never encountered a seer before, and never thought he'd have a reason to. He knew enough about them, though. Blessed with sight beyond the limited capabilities of the physical human form, they had started appearing soon after the Unity was formed. They were sometimes used to cut short difficult interrogations, by connecting with the suspect and – The Light only knew how – instantly determining their guilt or innocence. The most shocking thing about them was that they did indeed sometimes find people innocent; the less gifted interrogators often had a blind spot for innocence. Sam knew true seers were rare, but this one had come complete with a signed document from the Arch Lector, which meant she was genuine beyond a doubt.

He didn't have a chance in hell if she Looked at him.

He coughed and tried to concentrate on not giving her a reason to connect her thoughts with his, while trying not to wonder whether he'd even notice if she did. He read the letter through again.

"You do realise where we're going is very dangerous?" he mumbled.

"Yes, sir."

"And you're what? Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"Thirteen, sir."

"Bloody hell… look, I'm scared enough for my own skin. I'm not keen on taking a child into a zone known to be over-run with violent criminals."

The seer inclined her head. "The Light will shield us," she said, believing every single word. Sam shut his eyes. _No,_ he thought. _A dozen burly men will protect us. I'm certain the Light will take the credit, though._

He immediately cringed, but she didn't seem to be on his wavelength. _Thank the Light for that, at least_.

"We have our orders, then," he said, scanning the document one last time, in case there was an escape clause somehow encoded into the text.

"Yes, sir. I follow where you lead."

"I'm sure you do." Sam waved vaguely at the Enforcers, who snapped even more to attention than they already were. He tried to think of the appropriate order to set a body of armed men in motion, failed, and shrugged.

"Off we go, then."

* * *

The Doctor gripped Jack's hand without thinking as they set off again, this time in possession of a map and a purpose. He pretended not to notice that Jack pretended not to notice. And in return, Jack pretended not to notice that. 

From studying the map, the Doctor guessed that the area of the town not currently controlled by the Unity had been counsel estates and slums before they were taken over completely by the outcasts. It was a cramped area south of a thick, sluggish river, with the richer section of town accessible via three main bridges. The map was fairly old, but the Doctor could make an educated guess as to where the Unity had set up their HQ. They had to head for the east bridge, and once across, continue north-east to the site of what, on the map, was marked as a cathedral. None of the scientists knew the exact location of the Unity temple, but they all agreed that was the best place to start looking.

First of all, though, the Doctor insisted on heading back to the TARDIS. Blondy – who turned out to actually be called Ian – tried to convince him otherwise, but as usual the Doctor's mind couldn't be unmade. Now Ian sulked a couple of paces behind them, and didn't speak again until the Doctor took Jack's hand in his own.

"They'll get you for that," he snapped. "You really don't know anything, do you?"

"I know a lot, actually," said the Doctor, sounding hurt. "More than you, sonny boy, that's for certain."

"I mean it. You're going to want to tone that down. If the damn Unity catch you, you're finished. Not to mention there are people round here that'd turn you in, all in exchange for a personal pardon."

The Doctor didn't fail to catch the weight in his tone, and snatched his hand away as though Jack had stung him. Jack put a mental black mark against Ian's name – he didn't take kindly to personal threats, and he definitely didn't take kindly to people persuading the Doctor to stop touching him.

It was a surprisingly long trek back to the TARDIS, and all the way Jack felt a deep sense of foreboding building up in his gut. It increased with every step, and tripled when the Doctor let go of his hand. He had meant to ask Ian about the shadow creature, but decided that he'd rather eat his own head than admit to that creep that he didn't know something. He tried to expel its influence with simple, positive thoughts, which in essence led to an intricate fantasy involving the Doctor, the TARDIS console, and the defabricator he'd encountered on the Gamestation.

"Hullo, anybody in?"

Jack felt his face flush red hot as he realised the Doctor was trying to get his attention. "Huh?"

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"I'll tell you for free once we get out of here. On second thoughts, I'd rather stage a practical demonstration."

To Jack's immense satisfaction, the Doctor actually smirked. Part of the thrill of pursuing the Doctor was how wonderfully surreal it was to see him send and respond to sexual signals. Usually effortless in his image of far-above-you-stupid-apes, it seemed the Doctor had his own animal side that just needed the right sort of persuasion to come out and play. It had taken years, but Jack was just starting to figure out what was required of him. It was a lot to get his head round, because the Doctor did not share, did not give any ground, and refused to base a relationship on anything less than complete trust; Jack was not used to any of these things accompanying sex, but out of all the trillions of beings in the universe, he was willing to learn for this one man.

This man who was grabbing him violently by the arm and pushing him to the ground.

Jack didn't have time to protest before the shadow creature was upon him again, and he distantly heard himself yell out in fear. Utterly defenceless without the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor attempted to shield Jack with his own body, but it seemed the shadow was completely disinterested in the Time Lord. It wanted Jack, and was prepared to fight for him.

Jack felt the darkness descend upon his mind. Once more he was stripped of his confidence and his arrogance, his iron-hard resolve, and his up-yours attitude in the face of adversary. He was no longer sure of himself, no longer the Captain who had earned his uniform. He was nothing more than a hairless, clawless ape, a very long way from the trees.

Just as he was about to drown in the sea of uncertainty and dread, he was yanked back to the surface and to consciousness. A bright light seared his retinas, and, just like it had reacted to the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, the creature fled, taking with it just a little piece more of Jack's concrete self-assurance.

The Doctor was straddling him, his expression fraught with horror, and he breathed out sharply when Jack opened his eyes.

"You're okay."

It wasn't a question, or even a reassurance; it was an instruction. Jack was okay. And if he wasn't, he bloody well better start working on it.

"What happened?"

"Dunno. Flare? A long way away, whatever it was."

Ian grabbed the Doctor by the shoulder and hauled him upright, away from Jack.

"That was a warning, you idiots! They always give a warning. Think they're being generous, the fucking hypocrites."

"Who?" the Doctor asked, making a point of smoothing down his coat.

"Who? The Unity of course, who else? It's a raid. Intelligence gathering."

Jack somehow managed to drag himself to his feet. "If they're after intelligence, why the fuss? What's there to be scared about? Just make sure what they learn isn't the exact truth, or feed them info you can change. No problem."

"You really are unbelievable!"

The Doctor gave Jack a grim look. "Where's intelligence kept?" he said. Then he tapped the side of his head. "In here. In the minds of everyone who lives out here. Intelligence gathering is just a code-name for kidnapping."

"Now you're getting it," said Ian, with a grin Jack definitely did not like the look of. "The good news is, if we can make it to the Upper City without them seeing us, we should actually be safer there."

"Safer in the TARDIS," said the Doctor. "I've got spare parts for my screwdriver there too."

"I am _not_ getting in a little box with the two of you."

"Stay outside then," said the Doctor curtly, and set off once again.

To be continued...


	8. Chapter 8

Jack could feel his heart straining in his chest as he pounded after the Doctor. The street they left the TARDIS in was still half a mile away, towards the weird alien church, and the area of the city controlled by the United Divine Order. He was sweating, his eyes stinging, and he was acutely aware of every tiny sensation in his body – the rub of his collar against his neck, the prick of his arm hair, the infuriating lock of hair that for some reason chose now to irritate his forehead. The only consolation was the Doctor's reassuring hand back in his own – if they were found, then either way they would be captured. Best to have some small comfort to fall back on than get dragged to jail wishing they'd felt the touch of the other's warm skin one more time.

They were being flanked by two shadow creatures, one on either side of the road, but Jack and the Doctor seemed capable of outrunning them this time. They didn't try to lunge for him, but what really interested Jack was that they didn't go for Ian, who huffed several feet behind them, but instead kept level with Jack. He got the impression they weren't chasing him this time, but watching him. It was the first sign they had shown of anything resembling intelligence.

"Don't look at them!" the Doctor shouted over his shoulder.

"But they're not-"

"But they might! So don't! Once we get to the TARDIS we'll be perfectly safe. Just run!"

_Run, run, run. Never stop running. The ape that learned how to run – that's us. Run from enemies, run from danger, run from ourselves. Always blaming someone else for our sins, too afraid to accept credit for our graces, always running, because there are no more trees to hide in…_

Jack shook the thoughts from his mind and concentrated on the movements of his muscles. He knew he was fast and strong and agile. He knew all that. So why did he feel like a clumsy child, always on the verge of losing his balance and falling flat on his face?

The shadows closed in.

And so did the light.

"Stop! You there!"

The figures came from a side street barely twenty yards ahead of them, blocking the only way back to the TARDIS. A troop of armed men flanking two smaller figures. The captain of the guard had his hand held out in front of him, as though it was enough to stop three running men; as though blocking the entire street with bodies wasn't.

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder, but there was only one side street in this section of the road, and the Enforcers were between them and it. There was nowhere left to run to, so he stopped and held up his hands in a gesture of submission, if not surrender.

"Hello!" he said. "I'm the Doctor. Seems we've got a bit lost. Could you point us to-"

"That one."

Jack blinked. The young girl at the centre of the group was pointing at him, her gaze steady, challenging.

"That one will come with us."

"No, he won't," said the Doctor. "Like I said, we're a bit lost. Not from round here. Not from anywhere like this, to be honest, so you'll probably be wanting to let us go now."

The man beside the girl was also staring at Jack. "Him? Why him?"

She stepped forwards, eyeing Jack as though the foot-and-a-half height difference didn't exist at all. She was unremarkable in almost every way. Her face was plain, her hair was dull brown, and her clothes were old, nondescript. But her eyes… Jack couldn't tear his gaze away from them. They were like the Doctor's, in a way – ancient eyes in a young face. They were eyes that had watched people die, that had caused all those deaths, and deemed every one of them necessary. Every one of them a livid scar across the soul. Given enough time, Jack could have counted every life she had ended in her eyes, but time was not something in abundant supply.

"Kneel," said the seer.

Jack's legs collapsed under him and he fell back, just managing to catch himself with a hand behind him.

"She's in my head," he gasped. "I can't stop her…"

"Why him?" said the Cleric again.

The seer shut her eyes. Jack's eyes closed with them, and he fell back on the road.

"This one has sinned."

"How?"

"So many sins. So many lies. His tricks have betrayed whole planets. Every time he wins, a thousand others lose. As he lives, a thousand others die." She opened her eyes again. "And he lusts. Countless conquests. For each lover he has discarded, he tore away a piece of their soul, and he keeps them with him still."

"That makes no sense."

"He lusts for this one now. Lusts, and more. He thinks he loves, but his love is an abomination to the Light."

The Doctor looked up from where he crouched beside Jack. Unconscious but breathing, Jack was cold to the world, and there was nothing the Doctor could do to revive him.

"What," he said, barely able to keep a calm tone in his voice, "do you know of love, little girl?"

"I know what is in his mind. I can see everything behind his eyes. Everything he has done, all the things he still longs to do."

"That's impossible. You're just a human."

She raised her chin. "You kissed him goodbye, then you left him. When you wore a different mask. He once told you, you're the only one he ever cried for. Curled in the ruins of some alien world, his tears bleaching the sand, cursing the clawed grip you have on his heart."

The Doctor got to his feet, slowly. "How can you know that?"

"I told you. I walked in his mind."

"But you can't. You…" His eyes widened and he jerked back. "Don't you dare! Don't you even try it!"

Sam Fletcher managed to catch the tiny body as she tumbled back, but she recovered swiftly and glared at the Doctor.

"This one resists me."

"Too damn right. Now you fix Jack, and you take me to wherever you've come from. I've got some very big questions to ask your boss. Do it! Before I get angry!"

She shook her head. "This one cannot be fixed. He will be made an example of."

The Cleric's face drained of colour. "An… example?"

"What does that mean?" the Doctor demanded. "An example? An example of what?"

"Of what happens to those who sin," said the Cleric quietly. "I'm sorry. Take him."

A couple of the armed men hauled Jack upright. His head lolled back horribly, his limbs completely limp, as though he was in a coma. Another soldier began to check Jack's pockets, searching then discarding his coat, frisking him like a looter plundering a corpse. He found several technical devices, which he showed to Sam, then sealed in a black bag.

The Doctor laughed suddenly. "If you think I'm going to let you harm him, you lot are in for one hell of a shock."

The seer hadn't torn her gaze away from him. "You return his feelings?"

"Ha! You can't rummage around in my head for answers. Anyway, it's irrelevant. Jack's a good man, and you will not hurt him."

He felt her try to touch his mind again, and this time he pushed back gently, just enough to keep her at bay. "You're just a child," he said, voice low. "I've been doing this for longer than you can comprehend. You will not get through."

"You return his feelings?"

The Doctor stared at her for a long moment. "Yes," he said. "I do. I've murdered, and cheated, and lied. And I am so in love with Jack Harkness it hurts to watch him leave the room. So let him go, and take me."

The Cleric shuffled his feet uneasily. "We only need one, and this bloke wants to go. Let's just take him, and get back to the Temple." He flinched when the seer turned her gaze on him. "Because… I've got a lot of very important work to do," he added hurriedly.

The girl looked up at the Doctor again. "His name is not-"

"I know who he is. His name, and where he comes from. Let him go."

"You would sacrifice your life for him?"

"Every time. Let him _go_."

"Then you are worthy of the Light. We take the false captain, and we take the scientist."

The Cleric blinked. "We only need-"

"We take the scientist."

"Fine. Whatever. Let's just get out of here."

It took two men to carry Jack, and just one to sedate and drag Ian. But it took five to hold the Doctor back until the freakish party vanished round the corner, then they left him on his knees in the middle of the road, throat hoarse from shouting, eyes red and stinging with tears of frustration and loss.

No sense going after them. No sense at all.

The shadow creatures circled him at a distance. He clenched his fists so that his nails dug little half-moons into his palms.

"What are you two waiting for, eh? A bloody invitation? Please, do come in and devour my soul! No, no, that's alright, we already ate. No, really! There's plenty for everyone!"

He staggered to his feet. "If you're going to kill me, do it now! Then we can all take the afternoon off. Have a nice lie down, bit of a kip."

They circled, round and round, watching him, sizing him up. He shuffled backwards, and they followed, keeping their distance. He laughed.

"Come on, then! Bring it on! Let's see just how scary you really are! Because I am totally psyched. _Totally_ psyched. You saw those bastards just now? They took Jack. You know Jack, he's the one you've got a little crush on, but I'm sorry, lads, you're out of luck. He's mine. You hear me? So this is what's going to happen. I'm going to finish you little black rain clouds off, and I'm going to save Jack, and I'm going to bring the Temple down around the ears of the bloody Unity, and then, just to show off, I'm going to put everything back the way it should be! If there's one thing Time Lords are good at, it's fixing history when other careless sods come along and wreak it, so that's exactly what I'm going to do."

The shadows paused, one on either side of him, just hovering, waiting for some cue.

"So as you can see, I'm a very busy man. If you don't mind, let's get this over with."

Silence fell across the street. The Doctor's panting breath hung in the air like dragon-smoke. The shadows remained still, sinister, translucent shapes against the brickwork.

It began to rain. Completely without ceremony, the skies opened and light, ice-cold drops were relinquished to the mercy of gravity. The Doctor laughed; the shadows were backing off, circling again but giving him a wider berth. Finally they broke away, and skimmed through the air in opposite directions.

"Scared of a bit of rain!" the Doctor shouted after them. "Oh, you are brilliant! Scary, yet practical. Fantastic!"

He picked Jack's discarded greatcoat up off the ground and slung it over his shoulder, then he checked his map, and glanced up at the sky. No stars to find his way by, but if he couldn't read weather patterns he hadn't earned his honorary professorship at Oxford in the year twenty-nine-thirty-something, and his name certainly wasn't whatever it was. He span around, and touched his nose, then pointed towards the crossroads at the other end of the street.

"That way!"

Martha helped one of the nurses to lay an elderly patient down comfortably on the bed, then pulled up the covers and folded them back. The old woman smiled up at her.

"Real beds with duvets," she said happily. "Thank you, love."

Martha smiled and nodded. "It's not me you have to thank."

"Then who is it?" asked Agnes from the doorway. Her smile was weary, but she had found time to wash her face. There was a touch of colour to her cheeks again. Martha had rummaged around and come up with a spare lab coat, so her old one could be washed, although she refused to throw the tatty old thing out. Too many memories, she told Martha, with no one else to remember them.

"You should get some rest. We can handle it now. Everything's under control."

"And we're safe?"

Martha smiled. "For the hundredth time, yes. We're completely safe."

She took Agnes by the arm and led her out into a corridor so long that the far end was just a distant haze of colour and shape. Doors led off it at regular intervals, and each of their patients were comfortably tucked up behind one, safe and warm at last. Agnes touched one of the walls with her fingertips, shuddered slightly.

"This is… surreal."

"I know. You get used to it." Martha opened a door like all the others. Inside the room was a big warm bed, some basic furniture, and washing facilities. "Take a couple of hours, have a rest, and I'm sure there'll be heaps of stuff left to do when you wake up, so you don't feel like you're missing out."

Agnes laughed. It warmed Martha to see that serious frown disappear from her face, even if it was just for a moment.

"Doctor's orders, is it?"

"If that's what it takes."

Agnes let her smile, and her gaze on Martha's face, linger for another moment. Then she shut the door behind her.

Martha stared back along the corridor towards the entrance, and covered her face with her hands. _This_, she thought, _is going to take a hell of an explanation_.

She had barely set foot in the console room when the door swung open and the Doctor tumbled in, looking dishevelled and anxious. He draped Jack's coat over the TARDIS's handrail, then broke into a grin when he caught sight of her.

"Martha! Thank goodness. That means I've only lost one. That's a fifty per cent success rate and…" he stopped to sniff the air. "Why does my ship smell like hospital?"

Martha cringed. "Because it's full of sick people."

"Right. That'd make sense," he reasoned, then ran off through the door Martha had only just come through herself. She rolled her eyes and hurried after him.

"Where's Jack?" she called.

"They got him. But that's alright, because I was planning on making their lives a misery anyway. Now I've got a personal excuse as well as an I-was-just-passing-and-thought-I'd-poke-my-nose-in excuse."

"Who's got him?"

The Doctor vanished into a room Martha had never noticed before. She followed into what seemed to be a large workshop with a metal bench against the wall, and racks of tools and equipment all over the place. Several large screens were mounted on the walls, with one terminal from which to control them all.

"Some blokes calling themselves the United Divine Order."

"Oh. Them. Why'd they take Jack?"

"Sounded like he's broken a nice large percentage of their laws. I hope he breaks a few more before they get him to their temple."

She watched with growing curiosity as he pulled a number of components out of boxes and draws, then produced the sonic screwdriver from his coat pocket. It was black at one end, but he produced a strange cutting tool and hacked the ruined end off.

"This could take a while. Tell me what you've found."

Martha settled back against the bench and explained her adventures with Agnes as the others. She told the Doctor about the mysterious illnesses the patients had, which piqued his interest.

"Symptoms?"

"Lots of different ones. Um, some very strange welts on the skin, loss of pigmentation, blindness, some neurological symptoms… Loads of others."

"Interesting. You can show me right after we get jack back."

"You think they want to kill him?"

"I think they want to try. They'll be in for one hell of a shock if they stick him in front of a firing squad." He grinned suddenly. "Might even make him their new-new god, the fickle lot."

He held up his sonic screwdriver, which looked as good as new to Martha.

"Right then. That's one problem solved. Two if we were counting the whole where's-Martha-gone thing. Three if 'why does my ship smell like hospital' can really be considered a problem, and for the record it can, but we'll worry about a TARDIS full of invalids later. For the moment we have to concentrate on finding a way into this temple thingy. I've got a map, so that's a start."

"You want me to come with you?"

"Do you want to come?"

"I want to help find Jack, but…"

The Doctor nodded. "You want to help your new friends. Look at it this way. I'm willing to bet there's a highly secret lab full of remedies in the Upper City, and a lot of people would be grateful if I was, for example, to sneak you in and turn a blind eye if you were to pinch some samples for the TARDIS to analyse."

"Makes sense," Martha agreed.

On the way out of the door she paused to grab Jack's coat, and slung it over her shoulders like a cape.

"I've always liked it," she explained. "I can say I brought it for him."

It was tipping down when they got back outside, so Martha pulled Jack's coat over her head. She had to jog to keep up with the Doctor, her boots splashing through fast-flowing rivulets at the sides of the road. The streets were dark as sin, and she wouldn't have been able to tell if they started backtracking on themselves.

Suddenly, looming out of the gloom, she saw a large building up ahead, an ominous, unforgiving shade of black against the midnight-blue sky. The Doctor stopped outside it and span round. His eyes opened wide.

"Down!" he shouted.

Instinctively, Martha turned her head as she ducked. Something very dark, and very alien flew over her head, leaving her with a horrible sensation of dread. But it was gone as suddenly as it appeared, seeming to vanish through a stained glass window high up in the building.

"The black church of something-or-other," said the Doctor, staring at the foreboding wooden doors. "I think it's time I took a look inside."

It was instinct now; as the Doctor set off to explore some weird and probably very dangerous new place, she was compelled to follow. The Doctor had a way of forcing people to display their best qualities, to want to know, to explore, to discover. If Martha had been inquisitive before meeting him, now she was nothing short of nosey. If there was something interesting happening in the universe, she expected to be right on top of it.

As she stepped through the doorway of this forbidding structure, she got the feeling that, just this once, she could do without knowing. If the world outside was dark, then this must have been the centre of a black hole, because she couldn't see her own hand raised in front of her face. The air felt dry and still, and there was a peculiar, but not unpleasant scent of dust and ancient paper. She could imagine old Bibles lying half-decayed in the aisles, and huge candles with wax dribbling down the sides.

"Ooh," said the Doctor, pushing open an inner set of doors. "Would you look at those arches. High Gothic. Thirteenth century, I'd have said, except this stone is very unusual."

"I can't see anything," Martha pointed out.

"Oh. Right."

Suddenly the little room was filled with bright light, and Martha had to squint until her eyes adjusted to the glare. "What happened?" she hissed, teeth clenched against the sudden pain.

"I found the light switch."

The Doctor left her in the entrance and wandered into the main body of the church. Martha rubbed her watering eyes and followed him through. The building was like a massive cave, the walls constructed out of smooth black rock. It seemed to go up for miles, a single-storey monstrosity. She had never seen anything like it before, but it still had the distinct features of churches she had visited as a child. There were two sets of pews, crafted out of black wood, and an alter at the far end. An aisle ran through the middle of the pews to the alter. But the Doctor made straight for the side, where a number of statues were lined up.

"Uh-oh," he muttered.

"Uh-oh?"

"Absolutely."

Martha peered up at the first and largest of the statues. It had the same expressionless face as every other statue in the world, cast in black metal, dressed in a monk's habit.

"Roger Bacon," the Doctor explained. "1214 to 1294. Scientist, philosopher, practically invented the modern scientific method on your planet. Taught astrology in the very face of Christianity. Very clever man, Mr Bacon. But not exactly someone you'd expect to find in a big old church. Notice anything else odd?"

Martha was still looking at the plaque on the statue. It bore the dates the Doctor had quoted, and in stylised writing underneath was the legend:

_Doctor Mirabilis._

"Latin," said the Doctor.

"Wonderful teacher," said Martha, keen to prove she was every bit as well-educated as the Doctor.

The Doctor rubbed his chin and looked around at the cavernous building. "A message to anyone entering this building. 'Learn from this man'. What else do you see, Martha?"

She shrugged. "Not a lot. It's a bit Spartan in here. The windows are weird, though. No biblical scenes I recognise." She raised her eyebrows. "And there are no-"

"Crosses, crucifixes, or virgin Marys. My first thought when I saw this place was that it must be alien. And then I thought, maybe there's a Christian sect hiding out here? But perhaps both are true. Aliens who want to appear to be nothing more than human rebels from the _outside_, but aren't afraid to abandon the illusion inside."

Martha glanced at the next statue along. It was of an older man with a large beard. A small bird perched on his shoulder, and he held a book in his hands. She tried to read the title of the book, but the etching on the metal had eroded too much.

Without looking round, the Doctor said, "_On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life_. Bit of a mouthful. I suggested a couple of other titles, more concise, less snobbish, but he wouldn't have it. Liked his long-winded titles, our Charlie."

Martha laughed out loud. "Why is there a statue to _him_ here?"

"Haven't a clue. But I bet if you walk down the line, you'll find your old friend Hippocrates. Galileo and Newton too, I don't doubt. Maybe Einstein, Curie, Schrodinger. Socrates, perhaps." He wandered away from the statues, down the central isle, towards the alter. "A temple to science," he murmured softly. "Possibly the most dangerous thing we've seen here yet. The question is, who built it? Who maintains it?"

The lights went out.

"Us."

The voice seemed to come from everywhere, all at once. It wasn't a single tone, but more like many fractured voices attempting to speak in unison, and almost failing. Martha could pack out low, baritone sounds, and high altos, but at the same time it felt as though only one voice was speaking.

The Doctor stood his ground. "Who are you? Show yourselves?"

Several shadow creatures dropped from the rafters, spiralling together, and merged just above the floor into a six foot tall column of black smoke. Martha edged towards the door, but the Doctor stood his ground, seemingly unsurprised.

"Wondered when you lot would show yourselves. Found your voice now, eh?"

"We can fully manifest in our domain." Said the voice, speaking slowly so its final echoes could catch up. "Outside this place, we are too weak. We have tried to speak with you before, but you fought us. We do not understand why."

"Because you attacked my friend, that's why!" The Doctor froze, his mouth open in an 'o' of realisation. He thought of the seer, the light shining from her eyes, and of the shadow creatures fleeing from the flare, and the sparks from the sonic screwdriver.

"You weren't attacking Jack," he said. "You needed to speak through him."

"Yes."

"Well, you could have asked."

"No. We could not."

"Fair point. But listen. You did something to him, something to his mind. Something bad."

"He should not have resisted. We entered; we were forced back out. There may be wounds. It is possible they will heal, with time."

"And if they don't?"

The spiralling pillar flinched, as though something more tangible than it had been thrown through its collective body.

"Some wounds leave scars. That is the way of things. We have our own. This battle… this war… almost all is lost."

"What war? Who are you?"

"We are… dying, little Time Lord. But we have lured you here. To the burned and gutted remains of our home. To the desolate core or our planet, scraped and cut and hammered by humans, given shape and meaning once more. You must aid us. We are weak, and we will die, but you are strong. We see the fire of Gallifrey, as it perished in space, burning behind your eyes, and we feel your anguish. And we plead for your help."

The Doctor took a step forwards, his face dark and his expression unreadable. Martha could see the whites of his eyes burning in the blackness.

"I know you."

"Yes. We are those that came before."

Martha scowled. "Before what?"

"Before all. There was noise and fire and chaos, and we were birthed with the first atoms. We came before the first human ancestors slithered upon this rock. We came before the Time Lords ventured into space. We came before all other life. And we… we are dying. So many millennia, suffering in space, clinging to our dead world, and it will all end here if you do not help us."

The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back and ambled across to the statues again. "What is all this? You had the cold core of your planet sculpted into a shrine to human science? Why?"

"We merely chose a side. A side which shares our values. The apes did this themselves. We understand that it has meaning for them, and we question it not."

"But this isn't right. You can't _worship_ science. Knowledge isn't like belief, you don't need faith in it, and you don't build temples to it. Once you start getting religious about an idea, it all gets silly, and you forget which bits are true, and which bits were just thrown in to make you feel better."

"We told you. It was not our design. We merely ask for your aid in ending our struggle."

"What do you want?"

"We want you to do what you intend to do. We want you to do it in our name. Bring down the Temple of the Light, and put an end to a war that has spanned all of space and time. We will die, Time Lord, whatever happens. We will die. But we must not fail."

The Doctor stared at the statue nearest him for a long while. This one was a figure of a man in a toga with a long beard, propping up a tube containing a twisted screw. Martha was rather pleased with herself when she realised this must be Archimedes. She could practically see the cogs of the Doctor's mind spinning in his skull as he mulled the proposition over.

"I understand what you want," he said finally. "But this is not my battle. I've had my fair share of wars. I just want Jack safe, and I wouldn't mind kicking the whole bloody lot of you off this planet, but I won't be your champion. If you want closure, get it yourselves."

The pillar of black smoke grew darker, and its voice fall lower. "We could kill you where you stand."

"Perhaps you could, but no one else is going to waltz into the Temple of the Light and tell the United Divine Order to sling their hook, so it looks like you're going to have to let me go, if you want anything resembling a win. If I get the chance to face this… thing that calls itself the Light, then I'll consider it. But my concern is for the people of this world, not your petty squabble."

He didn't listen to the response, but turned sharply on his heel and headed for the door. Martha discovered she had to run to keep pace with him. He didn't slow down until they reached the end of the road, and were facing the east bridge to the Upper City.

"I have to admit," she said. "I didn't understand word one of all that."

"It's a long story," said the Doctor, scanning the horizon.

"And we've got a long walk ahead of us."

"Fine. Another story, then."

To be continued.


	9. Chapter 9

He opened his eyes. The room was brightly lit, and stark, glaring white. He was upright, chained or bolted to the wall by his wrists, and his feet only just touched the floor, so that the muscles of his legs were uncomfortably strained. He couldn't tell whether they were chained or not, but he felt too weak to move them at all, even if he was inclined to make an escape attempt.

Although… he couldn't think for the life of him where he was, why he was here, or where he would go if he should manage to escape. He had to concentrate until he remembered his name, and once he had the sounds firmly in his mind – _J… Joe, Jake? Jack, Jack something, Jack Harper? No, Jack Harkness _– he couldn't assign any meaning to them. They didn't feel like _his_ names. Come to mention it, these didn't feel like his arms, but that was probably more to do with the clamps tight around his wrists.

The only other thing in the room was a trolley, stainless steel, also chained to the wall. It held a small selection of instruments, the sight of which made a shock of fear jolt up his spine. Torture instruments. The details were still hazy, but he knew he had been on both sides of this divide too many times. He wanted out, now, and he didn't care what planet he was on, or what lay in wait beyond this room. He wanted _out_.

The narrow door swung open slowly. Every muscle in Jack's body tensed. He was exhausted, he ached, and he couldn't summon the strength to sneeze if his life depended on it. There was no way he could summon the willpower to resist the pain that awaited him, and there was definitely no way he could fight back. The other option in these situations was usually to tell the other side everything you knew, but somehow he didn't think they would be asking too many questions. If they did, would he even know the answers?

He didn't recognise the man who leaned in the doorway, but he sensed no hostility from him. Tall, slender, dressed in a sharp blue suit. Brown hair thoroughly dishevelled, eyes already smiling before his mouth broke into a grin. Jack hoped he knew this man, that his memory was just playing tricks on him still. Instinctively, he knew this was someone he could trust. This man didn't want to hurt him.

"Oh, Jack, whatever will I do with you?" said the stranger. "Can't take you anywhere, can I? This looked like it might be an easy one, and now here you are, all kidnapped and drugged and strung up like… whatever it is that gets strung up. I can never get that cliché straight."

Jack made an effort, and remembered how to form words. "Get me down."

The man ambled into the room, closing the door behind him. "I'm sorry?" he said.

"Get me down. Let's get out of here."

A distinctly predatory look crept across the man's face. He reached behind him and turned a key in the lock. That twinge of fear was back again. This wasn't right.

Was it?

"Oh, I don't know about that, Jack, m'boy. Let you down? I might never get another opportunity like this in my entire life. And that's saying something."

"W-what?"

"You're completely helpless, Jack. How does that feel? Me and you, we were never on the same side, but it was easy enough to fool you. Too easy, perhaps. Boring, if I'm honest."

Jack struggled to put a name to the face. The tone of his voice, his walk, the subtle movements of his hands… they became more and more familiar until the point where, coupled with his words he was speaking, they were physically painful.

But no name presented itself.

"So," said the man. "I'll be taking the one thing I kept you around for, then I'll be off. How's that sound?"

Jack tried to dig through the wall with his shoulder blades. The man stopped maybe a foot in front of him, studying Jack's face with dispassionate eyes. His gaze fell to Jack's throat, and now there was something distinctly evil in his expression.

"What… what're you going to do?"

Fingers touched Jack's bare chest. Cold, harsh, without a hint of affection, pressing too hard against his sternum. He would have bruises, if he ever got out of this.

"I have a couple of different plans. We'll see how this goes, shall we? Either way, you're definitely not going to enjoy this as much as you hoped."

"I thought I could trust you!"

"That's sort of the point."

The stranger shrugged off his suit jacket and loosened his tie so he could slip it off over his head without undoing the knot. That evil little smirk was back as he tightened the strip of cloth round Jack's bare neck. He wound the loose end tightly round his hand.

"Just in case you get any ideas."

"Don't," Jack croaked. "Please. Not like this."

"Did you ever think you'd get to choose how this plays out? You crash headlong into my life, invade my ship, follow me around the universe like a puppy who doesn't understand that a kick in the head means no, and you think I'm going to let you have any say in this?" The man laughed. "Captain, you are brave, and you are gorgeous, but you are _incredibly_ thick."

"Who are you? I _know_ you, who are you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't put too much stock in names. Let's just say I'm the bloke who's going to be intimately examining your anatomy. And believe me, it's going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt me."

Jack tried to turn his head away as the man leaned in, but a sharp tug on the tie reminded him of his place, so he screwed his eyes shut instead. Small, sharp teeth sunk into his lower lip. He could taste blood oozing across his tongue, mingling with the tears that ran silently down his face, following the curve of his cheek to his lips. The salt stung in the fresh wound, but not as much as the four razor-cuts of nails just beneath his ribs. As the pain became more intense, the memories began to flood back. An artificial world of metal populated by the dead, Jack Harkness the only man alive, watching his life fade away before his eyes. All those years of agony before he found his way home. The shielded look in the eyes of a man – this man, but not him at all – whenever he looked upon Jack, never quite letting his guard down. And he was right. They had never been on the same side. Jack had always harboured a little resentment – jealousy over Rose, hatred for abandoning him, frustration every time he failed to get through the defences and connect with this man – and now it came to the fore, filling his mind, overwhelming him with revulsion.

He kicked out; foot came in contact with kneecap. The man stumbled back, but the tie was still wound around his wrist. The fabric went taught, Jack gagged, and the world went fuzzy.

"Feisty!" The man laughed. Then he shoved Jack hard against the wall. "You're making this very easy, you know."

Jack's eyes rolled back, and his limbs went limp, before the man loosened the tie. He took a great lungful of air, choked, then gasped in agony. He hadn't had cause to realise until now, but it dawned on him that he was completely naked, and something very unpleasant was happening just below his field of vision.

"Fuuuck…"

"Oh, do have some patience, Jack. I'm just getting started."

He had never felt hatred like this before; but he had never been betrayed like this either. And he had never wanted to die this badly, never resented the hiccup in the universe that had resulted in his immortality quite like this. He wanted this to end. He wanted this man to kill him, now, so that he would never have to walk out into the world bearing the scars of this physical torment.

Oh god, he wanted to _die_.

"I'm sorry," he whined. "Whatever I did to deserve this, I'm sorry."

The pain eased off, the pressure against his body lessened, and he opened his eyes. That lean face was studying him again, eyebrow raised, a streak of red-brown blood from his lip to his cheek. Jack's breathing was ragged, his heart rate phenomenally fast, and to his own amazement he realised he was hard against the strange man's thigh. Even like this, his body couldn't help but follow where the Time Lord led.

"You're what?"

"I'm sorry," Jack sobbed.

The man nodded once, backed away, wiped at the smear on his face. "That," he said, "is all we needed to hear."

"Wh… what?"

"Bye then!"

Jack watched him pick up his jacket, unlock the door, and leave, pausing for a little wave. He wasn't sure how long he remained in the cell, weeping loudly now, crying for the man he hated to come back. But before long, the pain went away, and everything went black.

* * *

"There was a war," said the Doctor. "Millennia ago. Before my time."

"That's saying something," said Martha, grabbing his sleeve to stop him striding ahead of her.

He grinned. "Oh yes. This was before life in the traditional sense got going. Before anything got going, really. Back when there wasn't much in the universe other than a few odd hydrogen and helium atoms kicking about."

"Then who was the war between?"

"Hold on, I'm trying to put this into language you can understand."

"Oh, thanks."

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't mean that rudely. Adjectives and nouns don't exactly do justice to the state of the universe just after the big bang. Gimmie a mo."

Martha shrugged. She had seen the map, and they definitely had all night for the Doctor to come up with the right words to tell his story. Martha had a membership with the gym back home, and she tried not to overindulge on chocolate, but she wouldn't have put exercise and keeping fit on her list of interests. She certainly hadn't expected life with the Doctor to include all these long urban hikes, with no time to stop for a sandwich.

"There's matter," said the Doctor finally. "Then there's energy."

Martha nodded. "GCSE physics, that."

"Right. But how's your A-level physics?"

"Hm… I was always more of a biology girl."

"Thing is, there's very little actual difference between energy and matter. They're interchangeable in some cases, and in others, they're pretty much just the same thing.

"Ooh, like light being a wave and a particle!"

The Doctor gave her a strange sideways hug as they walked. "Exactly, that's what I was building up to. Now those shadow creatures I told you about, they're old. Really, really old. I mean _phenomenally_ old. They're what you might call the universe's first attempt at life. Like Michelangelo's first little David, made out of plasticine when he was four years old, all skinny legs and a huge round head. The universe needs life – life is a fundamental part of it. But way back then, there wasn't much matter to construct living beings out of, so sentience was formed from energy. Pure quantum potential energy, from the very fabric of the universe, given minds and free will."

"With you so far."

"Thing is, energy is far more difficult to manipulate than matter. You can't do much with it. It's all well and good if you want to light up your Christmas tree, but it's a bit rubbish when it comes to pretty much anything else. So our first energy creatures evolved. They gained the ability to switch between states, and they became corporeal, and they settled on a planet."

"Which one?"

"Didn't have a name. Not really. It perished long before the first languages were invented, as you and me would understand them. But these creatures were only different to us physically. Psychologically, they had all the same characteristics of every single other race in the universe. They had the capacity for great feats of love, and terrible evil. And they had a war."

"About what?"

"Who knows? What do people usually go to war over?"

Martha hesitated only slightly. "Jack said you were a soldier once."

"Jack says a lot of tosh."

He was silent for a while, staring far into the distance, beyond the city, beyond the Earth. Martha couldn't interrupt his thoughts, even if she wanted to. He understood what he was talking about – he comprehended the incomprehensible – and she didn't resent the fact that he had to scale it down for her.

Well, she didn't resent it much, anyway.

"This is something my people didn't like to stick their noses into," he said eventually. "We didn't consider it any of our business, and perhaps we never really understood it. Their war didn't harm us, or those we knew. It only harmed them, the energy creatures." He rubbed his chin. "That made it okay, I suppose."

"That's a bit… harsh."

"Yeah. Except now it's most definitely my business. They've learned some new tricks, that's for sure, and who knows what they're going to do to Jack before they…"

Martha nodded. If they couldn't kill him, she was sure the United Divine Order would think up some other, even more interesting things to try on him.

"So these energy aliens… They're the ones playing god."

"Yup. One side of the fraction, anyway."

"Why? Do they want to destroy the Earth or something?"

"Doubt it. Their home planet's gone, they're probably just after another. Getting the host race to accept them with open arms, that's a bit clever. They probably reckon they've won the war, but there are freedom fighters still at large. They're mortally wounded, and they can't hold on much longer, but they want to see the enemy fall."

"And you're going to end their war."

"No. If they hadn't asked me to, I might have done it anyway, out of spite. But now I know… That changes things just a bit. I just want to get Jack back, then we'll work out what happens next."

Martha nodded, and walked beside him in silence for a while. His hands were wedged in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, his brow knitted with worry.

She took a breath. "He loves you, you know. Jack, I mean."

"Really."

"You should do something about it."

"Really."

"I thought, maybe… after Rose, after all you've said about her, you wouldn't want to. But I've seen how you look at him, and you should. You know. Do something about it. With Jack."

He bit his lip, and his frown deepened, but he shot her a look she had never seen before; just for a moment, he looked completely helpless. She felt a rush of compassion and grabbed hold of his hand.

"We'll find him. And then I'm going to give you two a _lot_ of alone time. Could do with a break from all the barely concealed flirting, anyway."

"Oi!"

Martha laughed. "Are you denying it?"

Finally, the Doctor smiled. "Could you resist those fifty-first century charms?" He stopped suddenly and looked around. "Um, have you got the map?"

"No changing the subject."

"Seriously… map. Now, come on!"

Martha dug around in her bag and pulled out the now crumpled paper. "We were definitely going the right way…"

"Only if we assumed the Temple was on the site of the old cathedral. _That_ seems to suggest otherwise." He nodded off to the right, where a tall, thin tower was rising above the city. "The question is, what's marked there on the map?"

"Um… Here it is. Used to be a shopping mall."

The Doctor snorted with laughter. "How appropriate! A temple to commercialism. Marginally less insane than a temple to science. If they decide they don't like this new religion, maybe they can take it back, get a refund."

"As long as they kept the receipt."

"And return within twenty-eight days of purchase."

Martha grinned. "In its original packaging, of course. I wonder if they've got a KFC still. I'm starved."

"Kentucky Fried Catholics?"

"Oh, that's _wrong_!"

* * *

Sam Fletcher had never hurt a single other human being in his life. He had never intentionally hurt a creature, either, except when he put flea powder on the cat, or swatted a wasp. Even then, he felt uncomfortable and had to pray to put his mind at rest.

Watching the American writhe on the cold slab of the restraint table wrenched Sam's heart. He had done this. Him. His fault. He had taken this man from his friends, had watched the Enforces manhandle him, unconscious, all the way back to the Temple, had signed the forms for the physicians to sedate him further and strap him to the slab. He had nodded silently when the Arch Lector suggested a few experiments, and he hadn't stopped the girl, the seer, from insisting on another mind-merge while the man was out cold.

It was physically impossible to tear his gaze away while the girl walked through his mind, manipulating, twisting, awakening memories and suppressing others. He had never seen a sleeping man cry and wail and moan like that before. But he could feel Jack Harkness's agony as if it was his own.

As always, he said nothing. He stood in the operating room, near the head of the table, beside the Arch Lector (clinically interested) and the chief surgeon (enthusiastic) and the psychiatrist (was she _amused_?), and watched a thirteen year old girl reduce a grown man to a sobbing, trembling wreak.

And he said nothing. After all, what was there to say?

When the girl withdrew, Sam almost sobbed himself. Finally, Jack Harkness lay still upon the slab, his body suddenly seeming very small and frail, his face streaked with tears.

"Did it work?" said Dr Scott, the Temple's only on-staff psychiatrist. "Do you think you changed him at all?"

The girl inclined her head, all innocence once again. "I think so, ma'am. I think it is possible to alter deviant behaviour, and to change people's beliefs, from inside their head. The Seeing does not have to be a passive process."

"Good. We will need to look into this further. Tests must be done."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Cleric, what do you think of this development?"

There was no chance of Sam looking her in the eye. "I must… think about it," he said softly. "It has always been custom for those weak of faith to find their own path through the desert to the Light. This is… an interesting achievement."

"You disapprove."

Sam opened his mouth. _Say something. Just say it. You outrank everyone here but the Arch Lector, and he has faith in you._

"I have yet to form an opinion. Please, allow me to think on this."

_Coward._

He looked at Jack's face, the muscles now relaxed so he appeared to be in a natural sleep. Soft, dark locks of hair clung to the man's face and neck. His lips were flushed, bearing tooth-marks. Strong-jawed, handsome, young. A fine man. And this is what Sam had done to him.

From somewhere – he didn't know where – Sam found an ounce of courage. "Please leave," he said. "All of you. I need to pray over this man."

The Arch Lector nodded, and ushered the medical staff out. The seer was less keen to leave, but Dr Scott took her hand as though she was just a normal child, and led her from the room. Sam closed the door behind them.

He placed his palms on the edge of the slab. Lowered his head, screwed his eyes shut against the salt sting. There were surgical instruments within reach, but did not think physical pain was appropriate. He would suffer his punishment in his own mind, whether he wanted to or not.

He did this. He broke this man. The pain of that knowledge was inescapable.

"I'm sorry," he moaned. "Whatever I did to deserve this, I'm sorry…"

To be continued…


	10. Chapter 10

Dawn was bleeding silently over the horizon when the Former Reverend Simms finished tending to his garden. He was very proud of his garden, not least because it was the only one left in this entire section of the town. He had seen Dr Comma's yard full of abnormalities, with its cramped cages and weeds sticking up between the flagstones, and suggested to the scientist that he put in some fruit trees. This was met with a stony silence followed shortly by the suggestion that Simms go and take his cheerful countenance to someone who had time for his crap. It occurred to him round about that time that the people he currently surrounded himself with were no morally better or worse than the people against whom they fought.

He was also proud of his garden because it saved lives. He had broken down the fences on either side, then after a while broke down more and more until he owned something more akin to a squat field than a garden. At the far end, near the house with its entire roof missing, he planted as many varieties of fruit and vegetables as he could get his hands on, and now, in the growing autumn chill, they were all close to ripening. He smiled with satisfaction at a little tree whose branches sagged with fat green apples, and double-checked the netting over the potato plants. The main threat to his crop was animals getting into the garden from the woods, so he had spent a very fulfilling week scouring the Shadowland for scraps of wire fencing or clear tarpaulin to keep everything safe. There was one more precaution he took to protect his produce; checking to ensure he was thoroughly alone, he knelt and clasped his hands, lips moving silently.

Winter would be the worst time for the people who lived in the Shadowland. In summer it was possible to scrounge enough to eat from the upper city, and from the forest. Those who had money could sneak across the boarder and stock up, but in winter it would snow, and more people would fall ill, and the forest would be bare and lifeless. Those who still remained here after all these years were the hardy sort, capable of fending for themselves in bleak weather, but there would always be those who needed a little support. The Former Reverend Simms saw it as his duty, as well as his pleasure, to take in and feed anyone who needed it. It was probably the only reason he hadn't been handed over to the Unity in exchange for a bounty yet. If you could fit in, and provide something to the community that few others could, no one cared a toss what you'd done to incur the Unity's wrath.

"Get up, god-botherer."

Simms did not move. He tried to connect the voice with a face.

"Sarah."

"I said get up. Don't piss about. This is important."

With a sigh, Simms got to his feet. He didn't feel intimidated by the scientists, even with their mutant animals and stores full of weapons and poisons. Most of them owed him for a week of sanctuary in his chapel before the Unity tore it to the ground. He knew them all, and he guessed that he just about had their respect.

"What's the matter?"

Sarah was a lot younger than him, probably still a student when the reformation came, but now she worked alongside Dr Comma. Clever young thing, Simms had heard.

"Intelligence gathering," she said curtly.

"The flare went hours ago. They'll have gone by now. But you're welcome to come in anyway-"

"I'm aware that they've gone! They took one of our men. They've got Ian Brooks, as well as one of the strangers supposedly helping us. We must get them back."

Simms frowned and nodded. "I agree. Their welfare is important, but-"

"If they let any information slip, we're doomed," Sarah finished for him.

There was a long silence as Simms stared up at his fruit trees, chewing his lip in contemplation. The sky was now blood red, tinged purple at the horizon. It was a shame, he would have quite liked to get out his watercolours and paint it.

"Please," said Sarah, her tone softer now. "You're the only veteran we've got. I _know_ you gave up all that militant stuff, but we need to do something. Now."

"I was no hero, Sarah. I was just a boy during the last war."

"I know. But you really are the best we've got."

* * *

Jack opened his eyes, groaned, and closed them again. If he didn't know better, he would have dubbed this the worst hangover in the history of history. His head felt as though it had been cracked open like an egg, his mouth and throat were painfully dry, and oh, look at that, his wrists were tied together, and there was an anxious young man peering at him with a mixture of terror, curiosity, and affection. Exactly like the last time he'd felt this bad in the morning.

"You're awake," said the man.

"Ah, bollocks," groaned Jack. "Hoped I was still dreaming."

A small smile, and the man held a bottle of water to his lips. Jack drank gratefully, letting the icy liquid soothe his throat. A moment later he was looking into those frightened eyes again.

"What do you remember?" the young man asked.

Good question. Jack settled back against the wall and tried to get his brain in gear.

"I remember you," he said eventually. "We saw you in the street and you… I dunno. Did something. Gave an order. There was a girl."

"Do you remember anything after that?"

"Yeah." Jack's eyes narrowed. "Some bastard took a stroll through my mind, tried to trick me. That shit won't work with me, pal."

The man shook his head. "That wasn't me."

"Well, when I find out who it was, I'll make 'em pay, trust me. No one turns me against the Doctor. You'd have to kill me first."

The man cringed. "I wouldn't say things like that round here. Someone might take you literally. Look…" he stood up, moved across to a desk, and pulled a pair of scissors out of a drawer. "I'm Sam Fletcher. I'm a cleric here. I asked that I be allowed to pray over you for an extended duration. I said I needed to reconcile you with the Light."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means I've got you out of danger. They want to experiment on your brain."

"Well good luck to them, they won't be able to fool me."

"Maybe not. Perhaps they'll keep you as a control model. Perhaps they'll want to find out _why_ they can't fool you. Either way, you'll be safe here for a couple of days."

He knelt beside the bed Jack was propped upright on, and cut through the string binding his wrists.

"Why would you do this?" Jack asked. "You're on their side, right?"

Sam didn't answer, but disposed of the string and tidied away the scissors. Then he vanished through a doorway, returning a minute later with a basin.

"Wash up. I can get you some food."

Jack stood up, hesitantly. His limbs were stiff, and almost as soon as he was upright, the world tipped sideways and his vision blurred. Sam grabbed his arm to steady him.

"Better?"

"Think so. Did they drug me?"

"Probably. Look, I'm going to find something to eat. I expect you're starving."

Jack nodded and knelt beside the basin. As he splashed frosty water over his face, he watched Sam's legs retreat out of the door.

The door on which there was no lock.

But this Fletcher kid wasn't stupid, otherwise he'd have left Jack at the mercy of the surgeons. He wouldn't put Jack in a room with no way of locking him in if the world outside the door presented a far better deterrent to escape than a simple mechanism. Besides, Jack really was starving, and he didn't think he could stand up again without falling over. Not yet.

"The Doctor will be looking for me," he said, when Sam came back.

"Skinny guy, brown coat, mad hair?"

"That's him."

Sam nodded. "You two aren't from round here, are you?"

Jack just laughed, and eased himself back onto the bed. There was a plate of food within his reach, but Sam handed him a chunk of bread.

"He won't get in here, your Doctor."

"Oh, he will."

"They'll capture him, put him on trial…"

Jack shook his head. "You don't know the Doctor. And anyway, assuming he can't get in, what's your plan?"

Sam went pink. The truth was, he had nothing even remotely resembling a plan of action, because he didn't even know why he had brought Jack here in the first place. All he knew was, he couldn't let the surgeons carry out their experiments. This was not the work of the Light, it was the perversion of man, and it was not beyond his station to stop it. It was, however, beyond his courage to stand up to a room full of people, people who all served the Light, and speak his mind. The best he could do was give Jack these few days, and the opportunity for escape or rescue before anything irreversible was done to him.

"…You don't have one," said Jack eventually.

"I'm sorry."

Jack leaned back against the wall. "No problem. There's got to be a dozen ways out of this place." He looked Sam right in the eye, and grinned. "And you'll help me, right?"

He shook his head. "I can't. If they catch me helping a fugitive-"

"You don't belong here, Sam. I've known you two minutes, and I can already tell that. You want everything to go back to the way it was, don't you?"

Almost imperceptibly, Sam nodded. Out loud he said, "there are no wars now. People don't fight once they have seen the Light. It shows Itself to non-believers, and they are forced to acknowledge Its existence. We are looked after, and we are promised eternal life. Those who rebel deserve their fate."

Jack sighed. "Don't give me any of that gospel crap. There's no one here but us. If you can't be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself." He sat upright and gazed into Sam's eyes again. "I bet you never truly believed, even before the Unification. What were you, Jewish?"

"Catholic. And of course I-"

"No. You didn't. I can see it in your eyes, kid. You're afraid of everything. Afraid to live. So you cling to the first answers, the first comforts you're offered like a baby imprinting on its mother. This isn't who you really are, it's just a place you hide."

He did have any arguments for that, so he kept his mouth shut, and wondered why he couldn't tear his gaze away from Jack's face.

"I… have to go," he said eventually. "I've got a lot of work to do. This is my private room, so no one will come in except me. You're safe here. I can't stop you trying to leave, but it's dangerous. The Enforcers are everywhere, guarding the doors and gates, and they're armed. I'll be back later with more food."

As Sam gathered up his things, Jack stretched out on the narrow single bed. His feet reached the end, and he spread his arms out on either side.

"How long can you keep me here?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. "Three, maybe four days without suspicion. I've a history of praying over criminals. They're used to it by now."

"Four days, eh?" Jack turned over to face him. "The sleeping arrangements will certainly be… interesting."

Jack smirked; Sam went bright red.

"I have to go!"

Jack called after him as he fled, "I told you, you don't belong here!"

Once Sam was gone, Jack conducted a thorough search of the room. This was his base, then, where he could plot and plan and attempt to contact the Doctor for the next couple of days. Well, it was definitely better than having people experiment on him; he'd definitely had enough of that for one lifetime. It would have been nice, however, if he'd been secreted away in a room containing at least one useful bit of kit, but Sam seemed to possess nothing of any note. The walls were blank, and the small table held a bowl of elderly fruits, and a cluster of family photographs. The desk was crammed with books and bits of paper, all of a religious inclination. Jack examined a new, but well-worn copy of _Faith; The Only Path_, and rifled through a sheath of handwritten documents – sermons and speeches, it turned out, written by Sam, presumably in preparation for audiences. There were books of religious outpourings by various different authors, many of them seven hundred page descriptions of numinous experiences, as well as philosophical discussions on the nature of the Light, and the meanings of Its appearance.

In pride of place on the desk was a slim volume, propped up on a stand. The book was bound in white leather, and the single word on the front was embossed in silver; _Illumination_. There was a small plaque on the stand, which read 'presented to Cleric Fletcher on his election to the Illuminate Elite'.

It began to occur to Jack that he had been rescued by someone who, despite his meekness, held a position of some influence within the institution.

He picked up the book and flipped it open. The first half of the book appeared to be a long-winded account of the manifestation of the Light, and its progressive sweep across the globe. The second half was a set of rules and regulations, some standard, some slightly more insane. The first rule was eerily familiar:

_1. Follow the Light, and do not stray, for in darkness lies desolation._

That was followed by 'do not steal', 'do not cheat your fellow human', and 'do not kill'. Jack ticked them off in his mind as he went. _Done that… definitely done that… done that too often…_

After the first dozen or so rules, written in an impressive, heavy font, were a plethora of other requirements for true servants of the Light. Jack was amazed, and pretty amused, to find that most of these were to do with sex. Homosexual acts were expressly forbidden, for no adequate reason other than that it was an abomination to the light, and a disruption to the sanctity of the family group; women of a 'fertile age' could not be seen making any kind of physical contact with a man in public, unless he was her husband or clearly related to her; a man found cheating on his wife could be imprisoned for an unspecified length of time; marriage to anyone not sworn to the Light was also illegal. The book went on for pages with other, weirdly specific sexual and social requirements for people to adhere to, and it seemed to Jack that this book was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a document written by an alien hoping to rule over the human race. On the contrary – it was most definitely written by human beings, every single word, with the one possible exception of the first law.

That was just a little bit scary. So was the fact that he had, at some stage in his life, performed every single forbidden act in the list. No wonder that weird looking kid made a bee-line for him in the street. He was a textbook sinner, a deviant, a heretic. Which was weird, because his friends always described him as such a nice guy…

He shook himself, and put the book back on its stand. He could remember reading the New Testament at school, and wondering how the hell a nice guy like Jesus got involved in all that religious shit, and now he was thinking exactly the same thing about Sam. It wasn't going to be enough any more just to get out of here and find the Doctor; damned if he wasn't dragging Sam out of this place with him.

First things first – contact the outside world. Sam had a laptop, but Jack couldn't get past the security without any of his gadgets, so the next best thing was the phone mounted on the wall. This incarnation of the Doctor didn't carry a mobile, but Jack had memorised Martha's number. He dialled it in, and sat on the bed listening to the dial tone.

The noise cut off. Jack swore. But of course, Martha's phone would have registered him as an unknown caller, and nobody in this world should have her number. He gave them ten seconds to realise…

The phone rang, and he answered immediately.

"Martha, it's Jack, don't hang up!"

"It's me." The Doctor's voice was distant, but urgent. "Jack, where are you?"

Jack shrugged, then realised it was a futile gesture. "In some guy's room, in the Temple. Can't see much out the window, I'm afraid. It's high up, though. Where are you?"

"Right outside. Can you see us?"

Jack ran to the window and leaned out. Below him was a courtyard, enclosed by high walls and what seemed like acres of buildings. Directly under the window, a group of children stood in neat rows, receiving a lecture from a prim young woman. The courtyard was otherwise deserted.

"No. I can't see outside the Temple, just an interior plaza. Can you get in?"

"Not a chance. The place is heavily guarded. Too heavily guarded, I'd say. A little bit weird, but with half a city full of rebels they've got every right to be paranoid. I might be able to fob myself off as a pizza delivery boy, but I can't see any way to get you back out again. You're going to have to sit tight for now, I'm afraid, but we'll find a way." There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Jack, you're… alright, aren't you? They didn't hurt you or anything?"

"I'm fine. They had a good rummage around in my head, though, so I can't guarantee they aren't looking for you."

"Oh, we'll cope. Being hunted down by religious zealots is all part of the fun!"

"Not from where I'm sitting."

Another pause. "This rescuer of yours…?"

Jack grinned. He had a flash memory of being thirteen years old, and talking to his first ever girlfriend on the phone, tentative teenage questions and barely suppressed terror. The Doctor definitely wasn't some kid, and Jack fell back on his old habit of making light of the situation.

"He's cute. Might be that I'm susceptible to the old Stockholm syndrome."

"Jack…"

"Hey, you're the one always holding out on me. At least promise me that escaping from here is gonna be worth it."

A small laugh echoed down the phone line. "I'll buy you a burger."

"You know what I mean."

A sigh, and suddenly the Doctor sounded tired. "I promise you we'll… talk about this. Will that do?"

"It'll have to, I guess."

"We'll try and keep in touch, Jack. Keep a low profile, but find out as much as you can. I've got a few ideas, and they're all long-shots, but I will get you out of there. I'll promise you that for definite."

Jack said his goodbyes, and hung the phone back up on its hook. With that connection to the Doctor suddenly severed, he realised how keenly he felt his companions' loss. He wished he had spoken to Martha too, if only to hear her voice again, and he desperately wished he could look outside and see them, even if they couldn't reach each other.

He put his feet up on the creaky wooden bed, rested his chin on his knees, and tried to think. All the while, the walls closed in around him, and his world shrank to the size of a bare cell in a morbidly impersonal institution. And there, in amongst the fear and uncertainty, was another almost alien childhood emotion.

_I want to go home._

To be continued…


	11. Chapter 11

"What do we do now?" Martha asked, jogging to keep up with the Doctor. He had suddenly decided that he had somewhere urgent to go, and was striding off down the street as though late for an appointment.

"You," he said, "are talking to a man with a map. A map and an address. A map, an address, and a plan!"

"What address?"

"Oh, right, you'd wandered off by then. The address of the priest of Dru. The bloke whose house we saw get set on fire. I said I'd check on him, and this seems like a good time."

"What about Jack?"

"Mister Priest lives here, he might know stuff we don't. Jack can hold his own for a while. There's some information I want, and I can't ask just anyone or they'll want to know why we don't already know what we want to know. So. We ask someone who isn't biased against non-initiates. And who knows, he might know what we need to know to get Jack out of you-know-where."

Martha unravelled that tangle of an explanation and deemed it worthy. It was certainly better than anything she could think of. She hated the idea of leaving Jack in that forbidding building, but at least he had an ally on the inside, and the Doctor was bound to think of something soon.

"What worries me," said the Doctor suddenly, "is those scientist blokes back there. You should have seen some of their experiments. Green ferrets. Weird creatures with more eyes than limbs and teeth growing out of their feet. Not aliens, because aliens have to make sense in their own environment, but genuine freaks. That's not the bad part though. The thought I can't get out of my head is, if that's the level of technology the outlaws have, what are the authorities up to behind the scenes?"

Martha frowned. "Nothing. I thought this was science versus religion. Why would the religion have scientists? Isn't that what they're trying to stop? They don't even let doctors ply their trade properly."

"Just because someone's religious doesn't necessarily make them an idiot."

"That's generous of you."

He shrugged. "I'm a man of science. Emotions and feelings are important, but they really just boil down to biology. Without reason in your thinking, you're definitely on the wrong track. But still, the law of averages dictates that there must be at least some smart people in the higher echelons, and they'll be aware that everything we do has a Darwinian imperative. Your people only have things like faith and belief because at some point in your evolutionary history, these things were vital for your survival – or at any rate, didn't impede it – and that means there should be genes connected with belief. Your DNA governs how likely you are to blindly accept information as fact, and if they can tinker with your DNA…"

"They could make it so you have no choice but to believe," said Martha, in a horrified whisper. The Doctor gave her a meaningful look.

"Thing is, if they go dabbling in Jack's DNA, they're going to get some very nasty surprises. Humans have evolved quite a bit by his time. He can physically pass quite happily as a native of any era, but his genome will betray him if they try and fiddle about with it."

"Good job they didn't get hold of you, then," said Martha.

"Amen," said the Doctor.

"But wait," said Martha. "You can't just grab hold of a gene and twist it so it does what you want. You have to _have_ the gene for blind faith already before you can give it to anyone else, and even then, you can't permanently alter anyone who's already alive. They could make a generation of children who blindly follow their orders, but only if they get to every pregnant woman really early on, and they couldn't alter the actual brains of real live people."

"Maybe, maybe not. I'll have to get a good look at their labs, see how far advanced they are on the twenty-first century. You should be right, if the Order are holding back scientific progress, but it may be that behind the scenes, these aliens are secretly doing some way advanced things. There are other possibilities too. Mind controlling drugs, very sci-fi but definitely a possibility. Of course, maybe they're doing nothing. Maybe a real, tangible god who actually appears and strikes down unbelievers really is enough to convince even the most cynical of sceptics."

Martha wondered if it would be enough to convince her. It was difficult to be a doctor and have faith, but she knew plenty of people back home who managed it. A couple of her closest friends were Sikhs, and she knew several Christians, all in the medical profession. For her, though, it didn't add up. You couldn't watch a sixteen year old heroin addict give birth to a junkie baby, then kill herself, and think that someone planned it that way. That way, insanity lay. She had always tried to concentrate on the here and now, believing things for which there was proof, and withholding judgement on everything else, but if she actually _saw_ something that fitted all the descriptions of god, would she be content enough to go along with it, or would she be able to see through the act?

Funny. She had asked Agnes all about the hospital she'd worked at, and the patients she treated, but she hadn't enquired into her faith. Something told her that Agnes was a doubter, but getting her to admit it might be harder. Was it possible to _deny_ a god, with no proof? She vowed to find out.

They were now in a residential area, and the day was wearing thin. They had been walking these streets for hours on end, she was tired, dirty, and starving. She said as much to the Doctor.

"Have faith," he said, almost under his breath, "that there'll be room at the inn."

He consulted the map again, and smiled. "Almost there, Martha. Did you know there was a Martha in the Bible?"

She shook her head.

"Well, there was. Sister to Mary and Lazarus. She told Jesus off for not getting to Lazarus sooner, and stopping him from dying in the first place. A woman of great faith, apparently, but then, she did see her dead brother get up and start wandering about again."

"He probably wasn't brain-dead in the first place," said the real Martha, still trying to convince herself that she wouldn't take the obvious answer as the true one, even if it was really, blindingly obvious.

"Ah, you reckon Jesus was an Iron Age David Blaine?"

"What else could he have been?"

"What, indeed." The Doctor's eyes sparkled as he came to a stop outside a terraced house. Martha said nothing. She didn't want to get into a Jesus-was-an-alien debate, not when they had more pressing concerns.

With the Doctor, it was automatic to wonder what ingenious way he was going to find to get into a place, so it was slightly surreal to see him ring the doorbell and stand back, waiting. There was a muffled noise on the other side of the door, and finally it was opened by a bulky woman in a pink dressing gown, with her hair in curlers and a scowl on her face.

"Hullo!" said the Doctor. "I'm looking for a friend. Um…" He grabbed the map, pulled a pen from his jacket sleeve, and drew three connected triangles. The woman's eyes widened, and she grabbed his coat. She pulled him inside, and the door shut behind him.

Martha stared at the door, but it wasn't long before it opened again, and the Doctor let her inside.

"Don't worry," he said. "They're just a bit jumpy. Can't blame them."

Martha looked around at the house she found herself in. It was a shabby place to have to live, with peeling wallpaper and frail, scratched furniture. The Doctor was already greeting the Priest of Dru and his family, shaking hands and being hugged. That was the Doctor all over. He'd met these people once before, for about thirty seconds, and now he was their best friend. Martha glanced at the woman who had let them in. She seemed annoyed at the disturbance, but even she managed a smile when the Doctor introduced himself.

"Martha, this is High Priest Kalling and his family. They're Druians. Very much in the closet, so I shouldn't have to tell you to keep it to yourself."

Martha nodded. The little priest was smiling like a loon, overjoyed to see the Doctor again. His daughter – a pale, thin girl who the Doctor introduced as Tess – appeared with drinks and food, and Martha was led to an armchair and told to make herself comfortable. On the rug, three young children were playing, and a fat cat watched from a high shelf. Martha realised they were being made to feel at home. She nudged the Doctor, and lowered her voice.

"Erm, how long are we planning on staying here?"

"Until we know what we need to. Dru is very keen on hospitality. If someone comes to your house, you act like it's theirs. They wouldn't say anything if I asked them to put us up for a month." He eyed the woman in pink. "Most of them wouldn't, anyway."

"So hurry up and ask them about the temple. We need to get Jack out, in case you've forgotten!"

"Got to observe the niceties. Rejecting hospitality is almost as terrible as not offering it. Smile, eat sandwiches, talk about the weather. You're British, it should come naturally."

Martha rolled her eyes, but she didn't have to think twice when the plate was offered to her. She made a stack of little sandwiches on her knee, and munched her way through them while the Doctor got the family to talk about themselves a bit. Martha listened to stories of traditional Druish upbringings followed by their exile to the lower city, and the decision for part of the family to pretend to integrate so that those in the priesthood would have somewhere to go for refuge if the Unity came after them.

Martha watched the children playing. They didn't look like religious refugees to her. She wondered if they even believed in their god, Dru. Children could, she knew, be made to think any story was real, but the sort of faith that effects the everyday working of your life takes personal conviction. Children didn't tend to care about anything other than toys and biscuits, and it was her personal belief that until the age of at least eight, the acquisition of toys and biscuits should be the only driving forces in a child's life. Virgin births, life after death, and men rising from the grave were not healthy topics for a very young mind to dwell on, but those were the things still being taught at Sunday school, in her time. But, like the rest of the family, the children looked pretty much normal. She would never have guessed they were followers of a weird alien cult, not in a million years.

She sighed as she watched the Doctor get drawn into a game of cards with Priest Kalling. She had to take a note from his book; whatever weird beliefs these future people had, they were still all just people. Misguided, perhaps, but human, like her. They weren't Daleks, forced to obey strict genetic programming, and they hadn't even been brainwashed in any evident way. There had to be a way to get through to the people of this place, to make them see exactly what they were. It wouldn't be easy, but then, life with the Doctor never was.

Jack sat up hopefully when the door opened. His stomach had growled non-stop for the last couple of hours, and it was about time Sam came back with dinner. It turned out that thinking really took it out of you.

Not that he'd gotten very far. So far, all he had done was rule out possibilities, including escaping out of a window, and climbing onto the roof. He had come to the conclusion that Sherlock Holmes didn't know what he was talking about; when you ruled out all impossibilities, nine times out of ten all you were left with was a serious headache and a nagging sense of existential dread.

Twice he'd got up, picked up the phone again, and dialled the first few digits of Martha's number before hanging up. He couldn't risk her mobile being traced, and the safety of her and the Doctor put at risk. If they were captured too, all three of them were screwed. No matter how badly he wanted to hear their voices again, he had to rely on them from afar, and do his best to lie low.

Eventually, he resigned himself to scrawling notes and diagrams on a scrap of paper, biting his lip and cursing when his plans came to an inevitable cul-de-sac. He'd managed to fill a waste paper bin with balls of paper before the door finally creaked open.

"Hey, did you bring me a sandwich?" he called, before he realised anything was amiss.

"Sedate him," said a cold, low voice.

Three enforcers entered the room, followed by a thin, upright woman with a mane of white hair and a clinical expression. Jack started up from the floor, but two of the enforcers pushed him down again. He could have taken them both at once, given the chance, but the third struck exactly like a snake, stabbing him in the shoulder with a hypodermic needle. Almost at once he felt his mind slide away from reality, and everything became a blur. He didn't fall unconscious, but his limbs wouldn't obey his commands, and he was powerless to resist as he was hoisted to his feet, and dragged to the doorway.

The corridors they walked down meshed into one incomprehensible memory, and part of him knew he was never going to find his way back to Sam's room on his own. They went down several flights of stairs, through some very ornate rooms, and finally up some more stairs to the medical facility. As they laid him down on an examination table, the effects of the sedative began to wear off. He attempted to drop off the table , but his movements were still sluggish. He received another large dose of the sedative, and the room swirled in front of his eyes, the colours merging into each other, and he forgot why he was so upset about being here in the first place. Come to think of it, he was quite content to lie here. He settled back with a faint smile on his face.

The woman moved into his line of vision, her face and clothes smeared horribly to Jack's eye. She had her arms folded, and a pair of glasses perched on her nose.

"My name is Dr Scott," she said. "I'm a psychiatrist. It is my belief that there is something inherently wrong with the minds of those who do not admit to the divinity of the Light. It is my job to diagnose and cure such individuals."

"…S'nice," said Jack.

"Yes," she said. "It is. I enjoy my job a lot. I haven't found many answers yet, but I'm beginning to work out what all the right questions are. I think you'll be able to help me considerably."

Jack didn't say anything. His body was already breaking down the sedative chemical again, and he felt nauseous, confused, and irritated. He knew that within the last ten minutes he had been both furious and elated, and now he couldn't remember which was normal, and which was drug induced. Which sensations was he trying to fight?

One of the enforcers was standing at his shoulder with a third loaded syringe. Jack decided that, for now, it was best to lie still and not give him an excuse to use it.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eyes, and a fuzzy image in the corner of the room slowly resolved itself into a small, slim figure. The seer walked to the head of the table, so that Jack had to crane his neck to see her, and placed her hands palms-down on either side of his head.

"We should strap him in, miss," said one of the enforcers nervously.

"No," said the seer. "I'm going to attempt to get deep enough to illicit some control over his muscles. Such a one as this could be very useful to me. I will be fine."

Dr Scott prepared another injection for Jack, this time containing a blue liquid he didn't recognise. "I will be asking you some questions when this session is over," she informed Jack. "So please concentrate hard on anything you may see or feel. I'm about to administer a synaptic lubricant, which will increase your mental awareness, and is mixed with a drug to impair voluntary muscle movement. This will be temporary, and it will have unpleasant side-effects." She grinned suddenly, a flash of lightning in an otherwise tepid grey sky. "This," she said, "is not my problem."

Jack shut his eyes as she injected him, trying to compile a list of all the things he knew were real. He held the Doctor and Martha firmly in his mind, and remembered how he felt towards them. Martha, smart and funny, easily a match for her older male companions. He pictured her face, the way her eyes sparkled when faced with a new world, or an interesting problem. Her hair, her clothes, the curves of her body, all the way down to her shoes. He thought about what she was, the essence of her, and kept her firm in his mind. There was no way these people were taking her from him.

And the Doctor. They had tried that already, turning Jack against him, but he felt a now familiar bolt of fear at the possibility they would try again, and succeed. He was unprepared last time; this time he could fight it. He would not doubt his Doctor again, even for a moment.

He slipped unconscious, and all hell was let loose.

Martha found the Doctor outside, in the back garden. The sun had set more than an hour before, the sky was black to the east, and faded to dingy grey in the west. It was a clear night, free of cloud-cover, and Martha could see a vast plethora of stars spread like a buffet table before her and the Doctor, ready and waiting for them to pick whatever took their fancy. It wasn't an unfamiliar sight, but even to someone who had travelled to distant galaxies, it was humbling and breath-taking in equal measures.

The Doctor had his hands in his pockets, his feet placed a little apart, his face turned towards the heavens. Martha stepped up beside him. She wondered what went through his mind when he looked up at the celestial display. The Doctor walked amongst the stars every day of his life. How could he find anything up there besides the tedium of everyday life?

But of course, tedium and the Doctor didn't mix. Martha could see in his eyes that as he looked up, he also looked inwards, remembering the thousands of stories he had lived and would never tell her about.

The Doctor didn't move, but very quietly he murmured under his breath.

"The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."

"What's that?" she said, wracking her brains. "…Shakespeare again?"

"John. Chapter one, verse five."

"I didn't know you'd read the Bible."

"I've read lots of things you wouldn't believe. It was me who corrected the spelling in the Karma Sutra."

Martha laughed. "Yeah, right. I bet you'd blush just being in the same room as a copy."

"Nah. Man of the world, me."

"Right. That's why you go bright pink when Jack flirts with you, like a kid with his first crush."

"Oi!"

"It's kind of cute," she said. "But pathetic too. I just wish you wouldn't lie all the time."

"What am I lying about?" he asked, genuinely perplexed.

"This whole mysterious, untouchable alien thing, like you're not capable of falling in love with a human. Face the facts, you don't have some precious chastity vow, and it isn't species bias. You're just pain old scared that it won't be roses and walks in the park for the rest of eternity. Well, I've got news for you; everyone feels like that. Even Jack."

He shifted his feet on the grass, and was silent for a long moment. Martha wondered if she had gone too far. Technically, any relationship between her companions was none of her business, but she was the one who had to live with the tension and the anxiety, and Jack's pathetic chat-up lines, and she wasn't going anywhere until she made the Doctor realise how silly he could be at times.

"I met John," he said eventually. "The 'disciple whom Jesus loved'. Funny sort of chap, not your usual stodgy old writer of religious texts. Had a penchant for mushrooms. Very specific mushrooms, mind, not just any old fungus. Very peculiar. Lived in a cave, hated the Romans, but mind you, so would I if I was an early Christian and the empire was all out of kit-e-kat."

"You're saying the writer of the Gospel according to John was some kind of first century hippie?"

"Ooh, yes. I can see him having a whale of a time at Glastonbury."

"So he wasn't very… Christian, then?"

"Not by modern standards. Daft bloke. Kept trying to seduce me."

"Ah," said Martha.

"He believed though. Really believed, and it wasn't just the mushrooms talking. He actually, genuinely thought Christ was the son of god, and took the whole thing literally. And now people take is writings word-for-word. His other text to make it into the Bible was _Revelation_, and that's barking mad too., but there are people who believe every word, and have faith that what he wrote will one day come to pass."

Martha frowned as she tried to keep up. "You're making the point that people forget it was just other humans that wrote the Bible?"

"No, that should be obvious. I'm making the point that people base their entire lives on the scribblings of a delusional little addict and his palls, and don't realise that very few of the Bible's authors ever clapped eyes on Jesus. Most were born long after he died. People put so much effort into faith, effort they could otherwise use to change the world. But no. Instead of packing up some food and buying a ticket and flying to Africa to feed the starving, they get down on their knees, mutter under their breath, and think they're making a tangible difference, all based on the words of a bunch of people I wouldn't trust to make me a sandwich – people who went around breaking most of the rules the religion they founded is supposed to uphold."

Martha made an educated guess. "And Jack?"

"Has a faith in me that won't hold up if I let him get any closer than he is now."

"But I've never seen you eat a mushroom. Even a normal one."

He smiled sadly. "Martha, there are a dozen very good reasons why I don't do domestics, and they aren't all for my benefit. I don't enforce my own rules on myself because I feel like it. Just because Jack makes me want to break every single one of them, it doesn't mean that I should."

Martha folded her arms and brought her gaze back down to Earth. There was a patch of nocturnal flowers in the garden, their leaves half-way through unfurling to reveal deep scarlet petals to the murky night. Brilliant colour where few creatures were equipped to see it; an evolutionary throwback, she knew, to a time before the plant developed its backwards cycle. The colour was useless, but that didn't make it any less beautiful to Martha.

"I had a friend in college," she said, "who was really religious. Tasha, her name was. She used to help out at a Sunday School, said her prayers every night. You know. Everything."

"That's nice," said the Doctor, his eyes still fixed on the starscape.

"Yeah," said Martha. "Except she took a theology and RE course at college. They taught her all that stuff about the old biblical figures, and the opposition the church faces from scientists, and all about the different religions. How they're all just as convinced they're right as each other."

She knelt in front of the flower bed, her back to the Doctor, and watched as a small brown moth kissed lightly at the half-opened flower nearest her. It didn't seem to mind the plant's weird habits; in fact, she supposed, to a moth this plant was perfect. Two different organisms hat spent their lives in dark places, evolving to fit perfectly with each other.

"Must have been a kick in the teeth," said the Doctor, distantly.

"Yeah, it really hurt her at first. She was down for ages. Thing is, though, she eventually realised none of that stuff mattered. Despite everything her teachers told her about her religion, no matter how much people in the past screwed up, she still had the exact same faith she started with. She still believed, even stronger than before."

"Stubborn," said the Doctor."

"Yeah."

"Stupid, some might say."

Martha shrugged. "She was happy. Does it matter if she chose to ignore a few details?"

The Doctor's gaze snapped down to her level, and he stared for a long moment.

"Yes," he said eventually. "Ignorant and happy isn't something to aspire to."

Suddenly, Martha was angry. She didn't even try to hold back the annoyance in her tone. "Oh, so miserable know-it-all is better, is it?"

His expression remained mild. "Yes."

"Yeah, well, maybe for you, but human beings work a bit differently. We can't have all the answers, so we make do with the best we can get. And yeah, we get it wrong a lot, but at least we're capable of things like romance and optimism. Sometimes that mask you wear slips too far, and I can see what's underneath, and it terrifies me, Doctor. Maybe you should stop trying to change us, and let us change you for once!"

He held her gaze for a moment, then he turned on his heel, and headed back into the high priest's house. Martha grit her teeth in frustration.

"You – you _alien_!" she shouted after his retreating back, but he did not look round. The back door closed behind him with a very final thud.

Martha growled in frustration, and kicked out at an undeserving plant pot. The moth, startled, fluttered up into the air in a panicked spiral. She watched it for a while. She had read an article about how moths found it difficult to navigate because of artificial lighting, and it occurred to her how very self-centred intelligent life could be.

With a deep sigh, she made her own way back to the house. Apparently a room was being prepared for them. She didn't much fancy sharing with the Doctor tonight, not if he was going to be in one of his moods, but she desperately needed to sleep.

The last of the sunlight bled out of the world. Alone at last, the little brown moth settled back on the flower, which was now fully-unfurled, and continued to feed.


	12. Chapter 12

Doctor Mirabilis, Part Two (chapter eleven)

"_Long is the way, _

_And hard, that out of Hell leads up to the light"_

– Paradise Lost, book II, lines 432-33

The seer closed the door behind her, and padded softly into the room. The human, Jack Harkness, was in a deep sleep on the bed, his face turned away from her so she could not read his expression. She imagined him trapped in his own mind, feeling drained and faintly stunned, like the sensation in the aftermath of a great battle when you realise that, whatever the outcome, you are still alive; a sensation commonly confused with relief, but which soon revealed itself to be nothing more than a desolate emptiness.

She imagined Harkness had seen many battles, but most of them were locked away from her still. Her ability to walk through his mind increased each time she tried it. It would be a lengthy process, but eventually she would be able to see everything he had ever seen, and feel every emotion he was capable of. Soon, he would be hers.

The room was dimly lit, and the furnishings soft, but it was obvious from the lack of any nonessential items that this was not the room of any particular person. It was the hospital room of a man severed from everyone he knew. Just him, and her, one chair, one chest of drawers, and one window. Everything in the room was grey, including the seer's clothes, and the hospital gown someone had dressed the human in. The light seeping through the curtains was the grey of five in the morning. But the seer's mood was anything other than grey.

The first time she touched minds with Jack Harkness, she saw the potential in him. Here, at last, was someone with the right shaped thoughts, someone who could accomplish what she desired, and yet was confident and stubborn enough not to question his own actions. There were dark places in his soul, vast chasms of rage and guilt and regret, and she could use those for great things, if she could get deep enough.

And she would get deep enough. Everything she had worked for depended on it. She had thought it would take an eternity to find the kind of human her ambitions depended on, but serendipity had smiled on her, and brought her Jack Harkness, who had done so many things, so many acts of love and hatred, who had saved entire races, and doomed the souls of individual men and women time and time again… This wanderer amongst the stars, who loved a weary angel, and had sacrificed himself for humanity; he would die here, in this bare room in this featureless town in this fading kingdom, and his name would be forgotten by all but her.

She toyed with his hair for a while, admiring his shape. Yes, she was tiring of this diminutive husk now, and damn the rules. It seemed like aeons since she was permitted to choose her own form, trapped in this dead thing like a sleeper who knows they're in a slowly-lowering coffin, but can do nothing about it. It would be good to have some height again, some physical prowess, some sex, perhaps. Oh yes. She had missed that too. Condemned to life as a child certainly had its drawbacks, although she never complained about the fussing and the limitless supply of chocolate that seemed to come with the package.

"Jack Harkness," she murmured, against his ear. "I will remember you, my saviour, my beautiful ticket to the future. Oh yes. When you are damned by the world, I will have a shrine to you. When you are a footnote in history, I will speak your name aloud."

She pressed her forehead against the back of his head, and exhaled deeply. The process had begun. She smiled as she felt herself fade, as a little of her essence passed into him. Soon, this little body would die and rot, but she would live forever.

She was upright again before the door opened, which was something of a relief. She could not allow her intentions to be discovered, not for a long time, but it was only the silly clergyman who entered, wringing his hands with worry.

"There he is! I thought he'd got lost, or… worse. What happened?"

The seer inclined her head to him. "Apologies, sir. The patient had a fit, in your rooms, and someone heard him yell. He needed medical attention. I am assured he will be fine."

The cleric shook his head. "You see! This is what happens when you poke about in people's heads. It's not natural." He caught her eye and went red. "I suppose I don't really understand the process," he mumbled, trying to cover himself. "Good job someone heard him… Um. Can I have a moment? I did not complete my prayers for him."

The seer pulled her hood over her head, and walked past him, out of the room. He would not dare remove Harkness again, she was sure of that. She could afford to leave the silly boy alone with him, for now. She had touched the cleric's mind without him even realising many times, and she wished him all the sexual frustration he could get out of sitting with the handsome man. She seemed to recall that a significant day for the Temple was approaching, and the cleric would surely be occupied with meaningless tasks of preparation for most of the day. He wouldn't be a problem. In fact, she wondered if she might have a use for him.

She walked slowly down the corridor, and wandered into the psychiatrist's office. Children did not knock on doors, which had proved to be a valuable detail. Dr Scott looked up and smiled. She wasn't fooling anyone – the seer knew she hated children, and was smiling to dispel any suspicions that might warrant a mind-probe, as if the seer needed an excuse to invade the heads of these little creatures.

"Hello," said Dr Scott. "How's the patient?"

"Sleeping. I want to do another test."

"When?"

"In an hour. I think I was close last time. I think I can change his mind." A lie, of sorts. Of course she could change his mind. That wasn't a difficult process. Humans changed their minds all the time. It took nothing to nudge them into being someone else, but that was not what she intended at all. No, Harkness must remain Harkness at all costs. It was his very personality she was relying on. She had other questions to answer in the depths of his psyche, but the narrow minded Dr Scott would give her all the access she wanted to the patient if she fed her the right lines.

"I'm sure I can arrange that," said Dr Scott, still smiling that lie of a smile.

* * *

"Wake up, lazy bones!"

Martha blinked as the curtains were thrown open, and unwelcome daylight surged into the room. She still felt weary, but the edge had been removed from her need to sleep. She decided she could function, just about.

The Doctor was standing at the foot of the bed, as cheerful as ever, balancing on one foot as he tied the laces of his trainer. Behind him, the window was open, displaying a bright, blue-skied new day.

"What time is it?"

"Get-up-lots-to-do o'clock," said the Doctor, switching feet. "Lots'n'lots to do, oh yes!"

"Like what?" Martha demanded. "Eat more sandwiches? Play chess with granny?"

"No. Well, maybe, if granny wants to play chess, and I never say no to a sandwich, but I was thinking of other things. Rescuing our lost lamb, for instance."

"Right," said Martha. "So, what, we're going with the pizza delivery boy plan? Because I'll laugh if you have to wear shorts and ride a bike."

"Nothing wrong with shorts. I was thinking, for my next regeneration, maybe something tropical, Hawaiian shirt and shorts combo, great big hat, a necklace made of fish bones…"

"What?"

"Never mind, I'd never have the guts. What the heck, a man can dream. But no, I'm not playing Doctor Delivery Boy. I've come up with a much better plan. Well, I say I came up with it… It was mostly Kalling's idea. We owe him a heck of a lot for this." Suddenly he was serious again, regarding her with a gravity he reserved for situations it was most inappropriate to jest about.

"So what's the plan?" she asked.

"Kalling's going to hand himself in."

"What?" She shook her head. "That's a rubbish plan. How does that help us?"

"Well, the Unity are, above all, benevolent to those who convert to their ways. Kalling has to protect his family, above and beyond his faith, and so he is going to officially convert, clearing their names off the wanted list. The punishment will be far greater if they are ever discovered practicing their religion again, but it takes them out of the immediate line of fire. I agree with him that it's their best option."

"And Jack?"

"Well, when outsiders convert, it's some sort of perverted tradition for the Unity to offer them one boon, as a sort of welcome-to-the-club freebie. I'm going to go with them and pretend I'm part of the clan. They could ask for a new home, a car, a modest cash sum, but they're going to allow me to ask for Jack's return. The Unity can't refuse, or they reject the family's conversion, and they can't do that by their own laws."

Martha nodded. "It's definitely better than spiriting him away in a take-away box. But what if you get found out? They might know you're not a family member."

"Don't worry, I know all about Dru. Met him a couple of times. I can fit right in."

"You're telling me you met a god?"

The Doctor pulled a face. "Like most of them, he's not really a god. He doesn't even think he is, which is a bit rare, but enough people do. He doesn't like to disappoint them. Nice chap, really. Shame there aren't more gods like him."

Martha swung her legs off the bed and grabbed her coat. She was tired of sleeping in her clothes, and she was tired of waking up and realising she had no clean underwear to change into, but it was surprising how quickly things like laundry became pitifully irrelevant when you had a world to save.

"When do we leave?" she asked.

"Oh, A.S.A.P., I should think." He grinned broadly. "We'll have Jack safe and home by lunch time."

She shared in his optimism for a moment, but she couldn't allow their argument the previous night to go without comment. If he wanted to pretend it hadn't happened, that was good for him, but she had been brought up with enough manners drilled into her to know that, after an argument, you apologised. It didn't matter whether you were right or wrong, you apologised not for your views, but for the manner in which you voiced them.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You know. For shouting at you."

"When did you shout at me?"

"Last night, in the garden, when we were talking about Jack."

He gave her a blank look. "I don't remember," he lied.

And she didn't know whether that made things better or worse.

* * *

It was Martha's choice to go back to the TARDIS, and it had nothing to do with their argument. Usually, she would follow the Doctor to the ends of the Earth, or whatever other obscure and highly dangerous place he chose to go, but just this once she knew she was needed more elsewhere, and went without a second thought. The Doctor seemed almost reluctant to let her go. Lately he seemed, like a particularly clingy child, to abhor being left on his own, but he didn't say anything to stop her.

"See you back there," were his parting words, and she nodded, telling him to say hi to Jack. Truth be told, though, it wasn't Jack she was most worried about. He could take care of himself, but her ship full of dying patients and baffled doctors needed all the assistance it could get.

The console lights brightened noticeably as she entered. The longer she remained on the TARDIS, the most responsive to her it seemed to become. She had noticed it almost conversing with Jack, reacting to his moods and whims almost as readily as it did with the Doctor. Obviously, there was history there Martha wasn't privy to, but it was nothing to do with the nature of her friends' relationship, and all to do with Jack's winning personality. The ship simply liked him, maybe even loved him, if it shared a little of its Time Lord's self.

Martha stroked the console, and smiled at how Doctor-like she was becoming. "I'm petting a spaceship," she muttered, but she ran her hands over the wall as she headed to the wing where the make-shift hospital was set up. She found Agnes in a little room they had converted into an office, pouring over a stack of hastily written patient charts.

"How's everything?" said Martha.

Agnes looked up, flashed her a smile, then looked hastily back down again. "Everyone is getting worse," she said. Her voice was thick with exhaustion, and, although now clean, her face was tense and lined. "No matter what we do, no matter how much medicine we have stored up, they're all getting worse."

Martha sat down in a chair opposite her, and picked up one of the charts. This patient had gastro-intestinal problems which she would have put down to ulcers if it wasn't for the weird lesions on his skin, and his sudden lapse into blindness. It made no sense; it fit with nothing she had ever learned in medical school.

There were more, similar. Not all had the same symptoms. Some had organ failure, some did nothing but vomit up bile and acid, some looked sunburnt and couldn't stand up. Quite a few turned out, when lucid enough to realise, to have become blind. Most had blank patches in their memories spaced over the last seven years or so.

"No closer to figuring it out?" she asked, but she knew the answer. She stroked Agnes' hand, and tried to find a gentle way to say what she had to next.

"Look… My friends will be back later today, and we'll have to leave. The TARDIS will go. I don't know what else I can do for you… maybe we can find somewhere safe for you before we leave?"

"Your friend," said Agnes. "The Doctor… I thought he was here to save us. Silly, I know, but I still have some hope left."

Martha looked away. She was so used to the Doctor saving the day that it was slightly unnerving to think that they were planning on leaving here with so many loose ends left flapping about. She understood the Doctor's reasons for not wanting to get involved. This war was so ancient even the Time Lords had kept their noses out of it, and she was certain that any religion offering world peace had to score a few marks for effort. Perhaps people would be better off this way. Was it so bad, having to pray to a false god when that god could feed the starving and shelter the homeless? If the Light needed the entire world to believe in it, then it would have to solve the problems of famine and civil war. It certainly had a powerful incentive – in combat, there was a chance you would die. Defy this god, and there was no doubt whatsoever. It wasn't the perfect way to run the world, but the one she had grown used to seemed far worse, from a certain point of view.

And then she thought of the Doctor, on his way to the Temple, and wondered if he would really be content to take what was his and leave. He had never resisted the urge to meddle as long as she had known him. Once he got there, perhaps the urge to put everything right would overwhelm him and… Was it bad that she wished it wouldn't? She just wanted him safe, him and Jack. It was selfish, but she couldn't deny it. If he challenged this religion, he might make it crumble, but there was a good chance he would be caught in the rubble.

"It'll be alright," she said, in the most sincere voice she could muster. "It'll all turn out alright, I promise. The Doctor isn't finished yet. You can't ever tell what he's going to do next."

…To be continued…


	13. Chapter 13

"_Unity without verity is no better than conspiracy.."_

-John Trapp

"The thing about free will," said Jack, "is that you can't choose not to have it. None of us asked for it, very few of us want it, and we spend our whole lives running from it, blaming everything we do on someone or something else. The one thing in our entire lives we have no real choice over, is whether or not we have a choice over anything. We do. It's inescapable, and we must be held accountable for every single decision we make.

"But if some hypothetical god equipped us with free will, why the hell would he bother to plan for anything? I mean, God's ineffable plan for the universe, laid out from the creation to the destruction, is supposed to be the word of an omnipotent, omniscient being, describing a course of events which cannot, under any circumstances be altered or even challenged. Even the fall of Lucifer was part of God's plan, right? Lucifer, who loved God the most, was driven insane with doubt, and finally rebelled against him in a war he must have known he could not win, and he was cast down into the pit for his efforts.

"Did Lucifer have free will? Could he have chosen not to fall? Of course not, or humanity would have nothing to strive against, no way to earn passage into Heaven. But we do have free will, and we chose to fall. We had to. How could we do anything else? No human could resist the lure of the Tree of Knowledge, even at the cost of paradise. Eden was never enough incentive. We need to know things, we have to understand our world. It's what we do.

"And so we chose to follow Lucifer into darkness, thinking it was the light, and we moved away from God.

"But God's omnipotent, right? And omniscient. He knew we would do that, and he could have stopped us. That's what those two words mean. He could have saved us, and he didn't. Why? Did he have a choice? Does God have free will, or is he as much a slave as Lucifer was?

"So God chose to give us free will, knowing it would condemn most, if not all of us to Hell. He did that. God did that. He created a race of creatures and imbued them with the one attribute he did not have – the one that would condemn them forever. We were damned the instant Adam took his first breath.

"So really, what we need to ask is, why? What is so important about free will that God would send his children to Hell in order that they should have it? In a universe he created, running to his rules, why this paradox? You do nothing but follow orders, and you are neglecting this gift you are going to have to pay for anyway. You hide from the dark, Sam, because you think God wants you to. You cower in his light, afraid of shadows, afraid of disappointing your creator, but you've got it all wrong.

"All that 'worship me' stuff is a test. 'Worship no idols, pray to no god but me, sacrifice this, follow these commands, say these words in this order…' It's a test, kid. A test of your free will. God doesn't want you to bow and scrape to him, he wants you to choose the alternative. Don't forget that Lucifer was God's favourite angel, his most cherished and trusted. He put that seed of doubt in Lucifer, just like he put free will in you. He did not give you that power to choose so he could then command you not to. He gave it to you so you _would _choose, so you would leave the safety of the Garden – and that bit's important, because God can't just make you go, you must willingly give up paradise – and go after Lucifer, into the shadows, and search with him for answers."

Sam stared at him, with his mouth open. He closed it. He opened it again. "You don't even believe in a god!"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe I just chose not to."

"But," said Sam, "why would God want us to follow after Satan? He wants us corrupted? Why?"

"I dunno. Maybe God can't walk in the shadows himself. Maybe there are answers there he can't get, and he needs us to discover them for him."

"Then why Hell? Why punish us for doing what he wants?"

"Choosing Lucifer's path only counts as free will if it is a significant alternative to God's. It's not enough to be denied heaven; we must go, knowing that we will be punished, accepting it as our fate and the price of knowledge. It's only free will when there's a real disadvantage to the option you take. Otherwise, it's just flipping a coin. Some might follow Lucifer's path out of mild curiosity, but that wouldn't be enough to take them to the end, to drive them, to commit them to the cause. If it was a safe option, nobody worth spitting on would take it. Because there's a danger to it, only those who are passionate in their convictions will go. Those are the only ones God is interested in, the only disciples he wants Lucifer to have."

"But there are men like that who believe."

"Yeah? You think your Arch Lector, or your First Illuminate has the fervour of belief that those people living with no electricity, no heating, no fresh food in the slums do? None of you love your faith as much as those you persecute hate it, and that's why you will fall. A mountain might look permanent, but the rain that falls on it, that trickles harmlessly down its sides, will eventually wear it flat. You're on the wrong side, my friend, and you don't even have the faith in your beliefs to keep you away from me for an hour."

Sam shifted in the chair, hooked one leg over the other. The seer had performed another mind-meeting with Jack, and he had recovered from this one swiftly. He did not seem ill at all. In fact, he seemed quite bright. The way he spoke worried Sam a little; this man who claimed to have no belief spoke of the old ways as though they were fact. Had they got to him already with their perverted psychology? Sam didn't think a mind like Jack's could be influenced from the outside. Whatever your beliefs were, his would be stronger, and he would defend them with vigour until you gave up. He supposed Jack was being hypothetical, trying to sway his convictions.

He couldn't convince himself it wasn't working.

Jack's eyes were glazed over, and he was staring blankly at the wall, a million miles away inside his own mind. Sam didn't dare disturb him. He was caught up in Jack, entranced by his entire attitude towards the world. He'd never met anyone like this before. He had never guessed people like this existed, but here he was, large as life, systematically dismantling Sam's life. Thing was, though, he didn't think that was such a bad thing any more. Jack had done that to him. Showed him the mask he wore to hide from himself, cracked the shell of illusions that encased him. Jack wouldn't take the mask, though, or smash the shell. That was for Sam to do himself.

Jack's focus was suddenly back in the room. His gaze fell on Sam, and for a moment he looked utterly exhausted. "It's an alien," he said.

Sam snorted. "What? Who's an alien?"

"Your god. Your Light. Whatever you call it. That's why me and the Doctor and Martha are here. It's an alien, and we're going to stop it taking over the world."

"That's ridiculous." Sam stood up, took three steps across the tiny hospital room, then turned round and sat down again. He was sweating, he realised.

"That seer kid will know by now, if she didn't before. She'll have seen it in my mind. You can't lie to yourself, not beneath the surface. It'll all start to come apart, the Doctor will see to that. I need to get out of here, and you have to come with me."

Sam laughed nervously. "That's rubbish. I don't believe a word of it!"

"Liar." Jack gave him a look that made his knees go weak. "You'd believe me if I told you your mother was the statue of Liberty. Is it really that difficult to believe an advanced creature could convince all you silly little humans that it was god? It's been done enough times around the universe. It's an alien, a glowing, laser-equipped alien. And it wants your souls."

Jack stared hard at him, daring him to argue. Sam, however, was very good at finding excuses.

"We already know you can't get out of here. And I certainly can't get out with you."

"No problem. The Doctor will come."

"You have a lot of faith in him."

"He's earned far more than my faith."

Sam looked away, but Jack reached out and took his chin in one hand.

"Kiss me."

Sam felt his cheeks burst into flame. "There's a camera."

"Yes."

"They'll actually kill me."

"They'll try. Isn't that exciting?"

"No!"

"Kiss me."

It would, Sam vaguely knew, have looked ridiculous to anyone watching. He leaned over, screwed his eyes shut, and let his lips touch Jack's. A hand was suddenly gripping the back of his neck, before he could move away, and Jack kissed him thoroughly. When he was finally released, Sam had to fight for his breath.

"That," Jack said, "is what it feels like to fall. Exhilarating, isn't it?" He smiled at Sam's expression, empathising with the mix of confusion, horror, and desire. He leaned closer and whispered against Sam's ear.

"By the way, it wasn't Hell that Lucifer was cast down to. That's one thing not a lot of people know. It wasn't Hell, it was little old Earth. This is as bad as it gets."

* * *

The Doctor did not like to waste his time listening to other people speak, but that was exactly what he had spent the last hour doing. If he was honest, he hadn't expected a ceremony. In his mind, he walked into the Temple, made his demands, and someone in a robe went out, then came back seconds later with Jack. Then they all went back to the TARDIS for cake, while the Doctor laid down his terms and conditions to Jack, who agreed wholeheartedly with all of them, and kissed him like the Doctor knew they'd both always wanted.

That was probably why, after all these years, the universe still managed to take him by surprise.

"Stupid universe," he muttered under his breath, as a man in a robe continued to ramble on about something or other to do with darkness and light and being saved, and completely failed to go away and bring back Jack.

Of course, if all he had to endure before Jack was returned to him was a bit of tedium, that was something to be thankful for. He could cope with this. Compared to monsters and villains, this was easy. From a certain point of view.

He rocked back and forth on his heels, taking in the sparse white interior of the Temple. This was one of the main blessing halls, and apparently the man doing the rambling was one of the top blokes. The Doctor didn't care. He was, however, vaguely interested in the architecture. When he learned the temple was on the site of an old shopping mall, his imagination had provided him with images of people forming queues in front of prayer booths, and vending machines you could put a pound in and get out a can of holy water. He should have realised what one thing all shopping centres have in abundance; space. The place was massive, and – he thought with a smirk – seemed even bigger from the inside. From the street, the imposing walls eclipsed the view, so all that was visible was a handful of towers and roofs, but the internal structure was open and airy. Once you got deeper within the sanctum, he strongly suspected to find a lot more locked doors and thick walls, but the rooms here were all made of a white material that seemed to glow in the mid-morning sunlight.

What was deeply interesting about this room was the stained glass windows, arranged all around the walls. They looked like they had been taken from any church you cared to name. Old, thick glass, picked out in black lead, with mosaic shapes in different hues forming figures and intricate designs. He recognised several of them – a large, complex ring of leaf-shapes caught his attention, and he instantly knew it as the rose-window from la Sainte-Chappelle in Paris. A remarkable reconstruction, he thought, and then he had a horrible idea. He wandered away from the little congregation at the centre of the room, apparently unnoticed, and stood on his tip-toes so he could get a good look. He stuck out his tongue and licked the glass, then made a face.

"Bleugh. Tastes like the 1400s," he said, loudly. The man in the robe stopped speaking quite abruptly, and glared at him, but the Doctor wasn't interested. He ran over to the next window, which depicted a figure in a loincloth beside a tree. The Doctor licked this one too.

"1100s," he said. "1175, '76 maybe. No way that's a copy. The real thing, from Canterbury Cathedral. Adam Delving. Blimey. You can tell," he added, when the others continued to stare at him. "From the texture. Medieval glass, rather coarse, but naturally there's a lot to be learned from the taste of the oxides they mixed in to get the colour…" he stopped, and blinked. "I was going to ask why they're here, but it's because you're human, isn't it? Because you're human. You ripped down Canterbury Cathedral, because it symbolised the old ways, but you're so human you couldn't smash these ancient works of art. And now you flaunt them here to show the world how compassionate you are, how understanding, how we should learn from the old religions – a sort of how-not-to-do-it guide. Oh yes, they had bigotry and famines and crusades, but you've got to hand it to them, they could rustle up a nice bit of pretty when the moment called for it."

The robed man apparently didn't know how to react to this, so he turned his attention back to the book he was reciting from. He carried on talking in his tedious monotone. The Doctor shook his head, and carried on to the next window. He'd never had much of a chance to enjoy any of them when they were mounted in their original architecture, so he supposed he'd take the opportunity to examine them properly while he had it.

Behind him, the clergyman kept on talking, and his little audience listened, and eventually someone went away to fetch Jack.

* * *

The sound of voices in the corridor confused Sam at first. He could not work out what he was hearing, or what the implications were, or why the sounds were getting louder, and then it dawned on him that people were approaching the room. He sprang back, shook his hand out of Jack's grip, and flung himself back into the chair before the door opened. Not that it mattered. His expression, and his flushed cheeks would give everything away instantly.

Several excuses presented themselves for use. He could say 'it's not what it looks like', or shout 'the prisoner assaulted me!', or he could claim a stumble from grace and plead for several weeks in a retreat in the country to recover.

But none of these things made it from his brain to his lips, partly from the shock of it all, but mostly because he knew they were all blatant lies. He was tired of dishonesty. When they asked, he would say he had kissed Jack. And then he would be subjected to humiliating examinations, probably followed by torture under the name of treatment, and eventual death. But at least none of it would be a lie.

No one asked. A group of people stood in the doorway; Dr Scott, the surgeon, and the seer. Just behind them was an enforcer.

"This test subject is of great value," said Dr Scott, sounding terribly annoyed. "We can not allow him to be removed."

"Sorry," said the enforcer. "These orders come from high up."

"Higher than me?" demanded Scott. Sam had to admit, she looked intimidating. He wouldn't have argued with her if his life depended on it. Which it just might if they caught sight of him and his bruised lips.

"Much higher," said the enforcer.

The seer walked into the room, and the others watched her. She laid a hand on Jack's forehead.

"He can go," she said. "I believe I have done all I can with him. If I have not, he will be back. If I have not changed him, we will soon have cause to arrest him again."

Scott was still scowling, but she relented a little. "Fine, then. Take him." her gaze fell on Sam. "This cleric can escort you, and bear witness that we followed orders without protest."

Jack held up a hand. "Woah, now. You're letting me go? Why?"

The enforcer gave a slight shrug. "Your release has been negotiated."

"By who?"

"Converts. Standard arrangement. Come on."

Jack was given back his clothes, but none of his possessions. He didn't argue. His wrist device was the only really valuable thing he had taken from the TARDIS, but he could eventually build himself another one. He was wobbly on his feet, and allowed Sam to help him along the corridors. The enforcer walked behind them, never touching his weapon, but he was bigger than Jack, and besides, sheer curiosity was reason enough to play along. Nevertheless, Jack was convinced the whole thing was some kind of set-up, right up until the moment they entered a spacious, bright white room, and there in the middle of it, was the Doctor.

Jack fell into the Doctor's arms like a child reunited with a lost parent, and had to fight back the illogical urge to sob that accompanied the surge of relief that crashed through him. The Doctor held him painfully tight, pressing his face into Jack's neck for just a moment before releasing him again, and Jack had to remind himself they were still right at the heart of the Temple. He caught sight of the other people in the room, and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"We're official converts now," the Doctor said, in a voice that made it clear to Jack that this was not a statement to argue with. "Praise be to the light, and so on. Thing is, we're late for a meeting, and we left the iron on, so if you don't mind…"

Jack recognised the priest of Dru grinning at him from the centre of the cluster of people, and flipped off a salute as the Doctor dragged him towards the door by his sleeve. Sam trotted along behind.

"I'm supposed to escort you!" he called after the Doctor.

"We can escort ourselves, thanks."

"He's coming with us," said Jack, attempting the Doctor's don't-argue tone and missing by a galactic mile.

"Sorry, no pets!"

A couple of enforcers opened the massive doors for them. The Doctor and Jack made their way out first, followed by the priest and his family, who all looked extremely awkward about their false conversion but were doing a good job of not giving themselves away, unlike the Doctor.

"Back to the TARDIS," he said to Jack. "We're getting out of here, now."

Jack glanced back to make sure Sam was following them, throwing him a wink as they went. Brilliant sunlight flooded the square, and lit up the Temple like an elegant Christmas tree – although, Jack supposed, there were no Christmas trees here now.

It was that thought which made him stop dead. Sam walked into his back, and the Doctor took several paces before he realised Jack wasn't with him.

"Come on, back to the TARDIS, lots to do."

"No," said Jack. "This is Earth! We can't just leave it like this."

The Doctor's shoulders sagged, and he sighed. "Jack, this isn't how history was before. But it is how history is now. These things happen. I'm just one little Time Lord in a great big universe – I can't fix everything."

"You're a what?" said Sam, but no one was listening.

"No way," said Jack. "That's not you. That's not my Doctor. You don't just give in, you fight. These assholes have _stolen_ the Earth, and you're going to let them?"

The Doctor shrugged. "No wars. No famines. You want me to bring those things back?"

"Yes! If it means people can think and act how they want again! This isn't about letting history do it's own thing, it's about free speech, Doctor. And free will. That's how the world works. And sure, there are wars, but at least people have the chance to go down fighting for what they believe. They aren't tortured in some dank little room in a Temple for – for falling in love with whoever they want, or believing in whatever they want. That's the Earth I came from, and if this Earth won't become that one, if I can't ever go back there, then what's the point of me living this life with you and Martha? I won't have a choice. I'll be doing it because I have to."

They stood in the street, the three of them. The Captain, defiant; the Doctor, reluctant; the Cleric, anxious.

The Doctor nodded once, very slightly, then set off for the TARDIS.


End file.
